Other Art
by Jean Womack


These are snapshots of some other art projects I have been working on
in the last five years.  I have been acquiring skills in a variety of art mediums
so as to expand my offerings to students.  An important part of my
investigations has been in sculpture and mold-making.  I try to
develop projects that my students can do without a lot
of expensive equipment, such as a kiln or a press.  I believe that
art should be accessible, not just something you do in school and
never go back to after you graduate.  If materials are handled carefully,
with a constant awareness of potential hazards, then students
should be able to do these projects at home after graduation.

The subject matter that one chooses when one is not in school is
up to the individual.  Different cultures and religions have different values.  I choose to
teach figure drawing and figurative sculpture with the model fully clothed.  However, parents
should be aware that life drawing (drawing from the nude model) is a
required subject for graduation from ANY ART COLLEGE in the United States.  
Out of respect to the individual families and their values, live models are rarely used in
U.S. high schools, although there may be a few specialized art high schools
where unclothed models may be sketched or sculpted.  Students are
taught traditional art history which includes viewing pictures of nudes
from the Rennaissance, which one can see in museums.  However, these
are paintings or drawings of nudes which are NOT  engaged in
sexual activity.  People need to learn the human anatomy in order
to  understand how their bodies function,
and how to take care of their health needs in today's world.  

Card weaving.  You can make a nice belt this way.	Hand-built pot with lid.  You need a kiln for this.	Plastic study skull and clay interpretation
Quick clay figure study, bisque-fired.  You need a kiln for this, or else advanced mold-making sjkills.	Portrait sculpture, bisque-fired, hand is resting on her head.  You  could make a mold and pour plaster if you didn't have a kiln.	Shakere made from gourd, wood-burned decoration, string and beads.  The artistic possibilites for making musical instruments are endless.
This is a block of wood with nails in it on a grid of squares, used in math for explaining how to find the area of an irregularly shaped  shape.  I added the decorative flying horses with a wood-burning tool,  because I thought it reminded me of a constellation chart.	Pine needle basket.  This is easy to learn, but difficult to make it look pretty and neat.  Some people are better at sewing than others.	This is a hand-woven basket made from string, grape-vines and twigs, with paper poured into it.  Any bird probably could have done a better job than this.  I added plastic Easter eggs, which were sanded and decorated with acrylic paints.
Low relief sculpture, also called bas-relief.  This doesn't look much like the model.	Bear carved from plaster and vermiculite mixture.  I started with a milk carton, filled it with half wet plaster and half vermiculite.  You can carve this with a plastic knife and it  stays carvable for a long time.  It's a subtractive form of sculpture.	This is one of my favorite projects.  A drawing was incised into dry clay, then a latex or rubber mold was made.  Plaster was poured into the mold.  Then the cast was rubbed with raw pigment mixed with water, so that the pigment settles into the lines. Then I seal it with acrylic sealer, so I can wash it.
This wire mask is made from wire I brought from a Dick Blick catalog.  I think you can get it in The Art Store. It's much safer to use than the wire from the hardware store.  Also, there is an easy-to-make  hand-tooled necklace in this picture.	Here's another relief fragment displayed on a little inexpensive easel stand from Ikea.	This little sculpture was cast from part of a mold for a larger relief sculpture,   I cast it in Sculpey and then baked it.  Then I painted it with acrylic paints.
Here's an interpretation of the "hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil" saying.  This is plaster, rubbed with pigment and water before it dries.  Some people think this is fresco, some don't.	Here's the poor thing before she got painted.	This is a plaster cast from a mold. It is a relief sculpture.   I painted it with home-made casein paint, which is made from egg yolk and pigment.  The subject matter is a historic ferry terminal near where I live.
This is the same sculpture.  This is the original clay relief, which has been high fired with a stain and a clear glaze on top of the stain.  The details really show up when you put a stain on it.  You need a kiln to do this.	I made a mask from grocery bag strips and white glue mixed with water.  Then I took it a step further and made a whole head.  This is my husband's head.  I cut the sculpture off his head with scissors, and glued it back together.	Here's a Day of the Dead Cavalera in honor of that Mexican cultural tradition.  The original cavaleras were drawn by a journalist named Posada.  This skeleton is reading the want ads, looking for a better-paying job with health benefits.
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