I thought I could hack it....

Going a week without posting....but I was wrong!  The problem is that while I have been working my patootie off on the big little lady there's just not much to show for it.

Since you've seen her last she's gotten hair with stuff growing out of it.  I've had some metal garland for years (I'm a pack rat, thanks parents of that generation!)  and wove it in there along with some wired rope.  Then I decided I needed way more leaves so I went to the hardware and bought aluminum flashing and spent hours cutting out leaves.  I wasn't sure I even liked her "do" but its growing on me. 

One thing was for sure I hated her hands.  More specifically how huge I had made them.  her delicate arms were attached to these huge clubs and I wasn't happy.  After all, I wanted her to have thin arms and a thin neck so it wasn't like I could make them bigger!  But- last week I did make those arms beefier and guess what?  She looks good.  Then I realized that her arms were always too thin and she looked skeletal.  Soooo much better now!  That's why I decided to fatten up her neck, too.

And guess what? It looks good! Still long, thin and elegant. Imagine that!

She got a ton of work done to her face, as well, although I don't know that you can see it in these pics.  Her nose is much bigger- a real schnoz!  Her lips are more defined and so are her eyes.  I don't know if she's as beautiful with that big nose but she looks more realistic and seems to have her own personality.


But what's really been holding me up from visible progress is the costuming.  I had these two unfinished area that really had me stumped.  I really couldn't see myself adding any more flowers to the mix.   It became a trailing vine on this side.

And this side?  Well, remember the meds I was on for the vertigo?  For a little while I thought she should have an animal by her side.  But what would work against the dove she's already holding.  A fox?  A rabbit? A cat, a dog, a racoon, a duck?  I knew it would have to be a baby deer.  Then hours went into finding pictures of baby deer.  Once in awhile the thought of a mermaid crept in.  But eventually I stopped taking the meds and realized that if I want to get this done by August than I had better make a decision.

Now the other side of her gown matches the trailing vine.  Quite pretty and I didn't have to segway off into sculpting animals.  Whew!

At this point I have gone over all the glue joints with paper clay and am preparing to sand.  Then- its onto painting and adding glass.  Whew, again, the thought of that makes me sweat a little.  Probably why I am putting off and blogging instead!

Oh!  And another stumper!  I 'came out' at work when I was able to announce that not only had I entered this competition but that I had a venue!  But people started asking probing questions like- what is her name?  How do I say "She hasn't told me that yet?"  There were some Then someone said "well tell me what she's about..."  "Errr, ummm....its kinda sorta about ....the essence of woman.....ish"  

"Oh, so she's Mother Earth"  

"NO, She's not Mother Earth."  This I know. 

Well, put that on the list of not quite, but still getting there- list of accomplishments.  I listened to her really hard.  Got out a thesaurus ( A great place to find sophisticated sounding words- its so cool how you look up a simple word and they group it with really complicated words that mean the same thing but sound smarter!)  and started looking up words.  For hours.  Three beers later last Friday night I was on to something.   A headache.  And a couple of sentences that still looked good the next day.  So-what do you think of this as a title????  No really, I'm asking.

Life Cycle; Bounty of Joy and Sorrow.

And I am working in the word "Equinox" into the description.  See I had this powerful feeling that it would apply to her.  After I looked it up on-line (Thanks, thesaurus, for not having that particular word in your book!!!) I found that it means a time when the sun hits the equator in such a way that the day and the night are exactly the same length of time all over the world.

Well, for her, it means that she is in a place in her life where she has just as much behind her as she does in front of her.  (You know, 40ish!)  TA- DAAH!  The sculpture will be about her youthful dreams and hopes, coming into her power as a woman, realizing her potential to affect those that come after her and her duty to care for and respect those women that have gone before her.  And so much more.  Again- what do you think?  Make sense or am I still having after effects of those meds?