Possumblog

Not in the clamor of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

REDIRECT ALERT! (Scroll down past this mess if you're trying to read an archived post. Thanks. No, really, thanks.)

Due to my inability to control my temper and complacently accept continued silliness with not-quite-as-reliable-as-it-ought-to-be Blogger/Blogspot, your beloved Possumblog will now waddle across the Information Dirt Road and park its prehensile tail at http://possumblog.mu.nu.

This site will remain in place as a backup in case Munuvia gets hit by a bus or something, but I don't think they have as much trouble with this as some places do. ::cough::blogspot::cough:: So click here and adjust your links. I apologize for the inconvenience, but it's one of those things.


Monday, April 05, 2004

Just call me Rodin

Got home Friday and immediately set in to help Boy do something he should have been working on all year. As part of the kids’ activities at church, we also get to attend a conference every year (usually in Atlanta) where they get a chance to compete against kids from other congregations around the Southeast in various activities. Obviously, the point of the competition is not to demonstrate your prowess over your peers, but rather it’s just as a friendly way to measure how much they’ve accomplished over the past year in learning how to debate or lead singing or do Bible readings and the like. One of the activities Jonathan likes to do is artwork, and this year he had decided to enter a sculpture depicting something along the lines of Peter preaching to the crowd on Pentecost.

Obviously, not gonna be able to do a crowd that size in Sculpey Clay. Added to this is that he is still at the age where he’s not quite sure how to translate his artistic ideas into form. He knows WHAT he wants to do, but just not quite HOW.

Enter Daddy.

I doodled a couple of sketches of a little guy on a raised platform with a wall behind him and a semicircular paved area in front, then some little squid-looking people all around him. (Trust me--I rock at freehand sketching, so while the description might sound bland, the image was powerful and thought-provoking. At least to Boy.) Anyway, he like the sketch, so digging deep in my vast knowledge of Biblical places (based, as it is, upon repeated viewings of Monty Python’s Life of Brian), we set about to recreate a small Jerusalem streetscape as a base.

Lots of tan clay later, and we had ourselves a set of small steps and an area paved with cobblestones that looked just like a set of small steps and an area paved with cobblestones. Added to this was a backdrop of a beigey-colored wall of a building with a doorway leading to the steps, and a tiny window, each with a dark brown wooden door and/or shutter. The end result was really good--probably too good, as the Hand of Parental Involvement is not an easy thing to disguise. (And Jonathan actually did help a lot, despite what you might be thinking.)

The tiny people will be the thing that brings it back down to earth a bit. Sculpting people is hard, doing so at a half-inch high even more so. While his streetscape cooked in the oven, we experimented with people and finally managed to figure out a way to cut out an outline for the garment, dress it up a little with the spatula tool to give it some roundness, and then add arms, legs, and heads. We managed to get three done. Somehow, the thought of Peter preaching to three guys, all of whom looked more or less alike, is not quite inspiring. But at least we have proof of concept, which is a good thing.

Seeing as how it’s due Wednesday.

::sigh::


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