Creative Journeys

Daniel thought mashing up this with this might be cool. And I think he was right:

RESPECT.

I’ve spent most of my life
letting my demons convince me
I don’t deserve it.

So I’ve seldom expected it.
Rarely asked for it.
Never demanded it.

That must change.
And my first demand is
that I demand respect from

MYSELF.

Here’s a progress report on the mask-making project that I first posted about a couple of weeks ago.

It ended up taking a while for me to get back to the project because, honestly, I think I might be trying to do too many different things at once with my creativity quest. But that’s another post for later. Back to the mask-making…

To summarize, I used an instant paper-mache product called Celluclay and formed it over a cheap plastic masquerade mask that I bought at Michael’s. I followed the instructions pretty rigorously, except that I went ahead and added the Celluclay right over the mask instead of putting a layer of cling-wrap over the plastic first. I did this on purpose because I intended to leave the clay on the plastic permanently. Well, Celluclay is supposed to dry in a day or two, but after a week of waiting, there were several parts of the mask that were not dry. I realized it was because 1. I put the Celluclay on really thick – too thick, and 2. I realized that Celluclay sitting up against solid plastic will take ridiculously long to dry because no air is getting to it. Oops.

What I decided to do was to try to get the Celluclay off the plastic form while keeping my mask as intact as possible, so that the non-dry parts could get air.

That was a mistake. Imagine if you will what happens when you try to rip something that is partially dry and partially wet off of a form that – when dry – it is designed to stick to. No matter how carefully you try to do it, what you get is something like this …

Yeah, oops.

But I’m sooo glad this happened. Best creative thing to happen all week. Because 1. screwing this up really taught me a lot about how to work with Celluclay, and 2. Frankly, in its own way, those broken shards of mask actually look pretty kick-ass. Imagine those pieces painted up to look like old distressed crimson-colored metal and partially buried in some rocky sand or dirt.

Do you see it? That’s a thematic provocation right there. It’s a story. I’ve accidentally gone from making a bit of wall decor to creating a visual story-hook for The Scarlet Masque. Maybe even the cover of the rpg, should it ever come to that.

So, this ‘failed’ first attempt is sitting on my work counter waiting to be further transformed into an accidental masterpiece.

Meanwhile, I’ve got a second (and currently intact) mask drying on the work counter, too. I’ll share more about that one in future posts. I’m also itching to try to make one out of leather, and I’ve got some cool ideas about decorating the cheap plastic mask as well.

See what I mean about working on too much stuff at once? If you’re counting, that’s FOUR mask projects at one time. And that’s just masks, it doesn’t count the paintings, mandalas, and digital work I’m trying to do as well. Clearly I’m taking too much on at once and not focusing properly on any of it. But like I wrote earlier, that really ought to be its own post.

It’s like Briana took the thoughts I’ve been thinking right out of my head, massaged them with her own knack for wordplay, and then shared them with the world.

More Adventures in Snobbery via Blisscovery

Especially this part:

In Sarah’s latest series about online rockstar-dom, she wrote:

The point, after all, isn’t to change yourself so that people will like you. The point is to gauge how accurately you are voicing your truths.

Ahhh, yes. That’s where 16 year old me got things very wrong. I’m pretty sure I was all about changing myself to get people to like me.

The only difference is, I’m way past 16 years old and STILL, at this very moment, trying to navigate the difference between getting people to like me and trying to gauge how to accurately voice my truths.

Oh, and Fred Hicks is just adding two gallons of fuel to this whole thing in terms of me pondering how my online persona (which I’m trying to make authentic to my everyday person) walks the very same labyrinth.

One of the new creative toys I’ve been playing around with is Apophysis, a free bit of software that lets you generate some pretty cool fractal-based stuff. Like this:

Apophysis is a program where it’s pretty easy to make some cool-looking stuff right out of the gate – there are some good tutorials to help with the basics – but it’s challenging to master.  And I have in no way mastered it. Depending on your personality it can be addictive playing around with the various dials figuring out ways to achieve interesting effects. I’m one of those guys who could get very addicted, but I’m going to try not to get too caught up in Apophysis because I don’t want one more computer-focused thing to distract me. I am, after all, trying to carve out time to be more creative away from the computer.

I’ll probably share some more of these along the way, though, and if you like one well enough to use as a wallpaper, contact me and I’ll send you one of the appropriate resolution. I make the originals at 1600 pixels wide, so that should cover it.

February 2nd. Brigid’s Day.

Here’s a photo of my mantle with a candle lit for Imbolc and below that, a digital painting I made last night with Painter X, based on a 3d render I worked up a couple years ago.

In honor of my muse, my Lady, my creative spark, my Empress, my mother, my anima, my tornado, my warm breeze, my protector, my instigator … sun of my morning, moon of my night, fire in my darkness.

I light a candle and create … and Possibility inches ever more closely to being born.

Step 1: Celluclay over a generic plastic face mold.

After letting my bag of mixed Celluclay sit untouched in the fridge for over a week, this weekend I finally decided to try to make my first venetian mask. I formed the stuff over a generic plastic face mold, then spent about an hour smoothing it around, filling in gaps, and adding some bulk to the nose and brows to customize the basic shape. Now it’s sitting on my oven drying – a process that’ll take about 24 hours.

Celluclay is a form of retail paper mache that behaves a lot like clay, then hardens into a solid form that can be sanded and carved and cut to a nice smooth finish, then painted or decorated. This is the first time I’ve worked with anything like Celluclay, and I think I like it, although I am definitely going to need to get a few masks under my belt before I feel like I have a good sense of how to work it and mold it to my satisfaction. This feels like a pretty good first try, though. I’ve made masquerade masks for theatre productions before, but it was over 15 years ago and back then we used different materials.

I’ll keep taking pictures and sharing what this process is like. I plan to make several masks in the future and I want to keep a record of what it was like to create the very first one.