Atelier Luteiventris - Montgomery J Nelson: September 2021

Monday, September 27, 2021

Quick Sketches in Soft Monster Clay

I wanted to give Monster Clay a try for sculpting potential toy designs. I ordered a sample pack with their soft, medium, and hard clay. Last night I made two quick sketches from the soft Monster Clay.

©️2021 Montgomery J Nelson

I made this little fellow, and then rolled him into a ball and tried a face.

©️Montgomery J Nelson

The soft Monster Clay was fun to use, but I think the medium and soft will be better to cast. It’s fun to get in the mindset of sketching in clay just as you would using newsprint with drawing media. New characters can quickly be discovered (or quickly discarded).

Sunday, September 26, 2021

FaceTime Art Class With My Barnebarn

My barnebarn Natalia let me do art class with her via FaceTime today! Our lesson was about Color and Value.

©️2021 Montgomery J Nelson

We did practical work with primary and secondary colors. We also did some practical work with value: we looked at a nice group of Gamblin whites, grays, and blacks; and tinted, toned, and shaded a beautiful red!

Bestefar learned lots today, thanks Natalia!

Monday, September 20, 2021

Castilene Sculpting: Maggot King

I’ve thought quite a lot about doing some designer toys / figurines, and have posted different designs several times (See my September 2013 and August 2016 &c.) The only ones I’ve sculpted so far are; Maggot Paratrooper, Dick Maggot, and Fish Surfing.

©️Montgomery J Nelson 2021

This morning I started a Castilene sculpture of Maggot King of TARF. Castilene is a Chavant product that models like a hybrid between hard clay and wax.

©️Montgomery J Nelson 2021

I like to warm the block of Castilene under a heat lamp for easier modeling.

©️Montgomery J Nelson 2021

The basic shaping of the Castilene over an aluminum foil armature is almost done, then I’ll get going with the detail work such as his crown and the skull’s features.

©️Montgomery J Nelson

Tuesday, September 14, 2021

Artist Trading Cards

I was getting low on ATCs, so I drew and painted six today.

I used pencil, India ink pen and brush pen, and watercolors on Strathmore Watercolor Artist Trading Cards.

Friday, September 10, 2021

More Block Printing

Block print cards are fun and pretty easy to do.

An infant skull I carved on one of McClaine’s linoleum blocks. https://www.imcclains.com/

This is a Speedball “Speedy Carve”. https://www.dickblick.com/products/speedball-speedy-carve-blocks/ They are quick and easy to carve. Here I combined the printed ink image with a single watercolor stroke.

Natalia was recently much engaged in creating POTIONS AGAINST PATRIARCHY, and I created this print for a card I sent to her celebrating her bold feminist witchcraft.

Block printing cards is a nice way to get seasonal greetings out to your friends and family. My family knows that I’m nuts. So there’s that-.

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Bird Skull Triptych

Oil on three 6 1/2 X 12” panels.

Monday, September 6, 2021

Bird Skull Oil Painting

Bird Skull, Oil on canvas, 24X30”.

Sunday, September 5, 2021

Wash Your Brushes!

This is the stuff I use to clean my brushes. I hate to clean my brushes.

I love clean brushes.

For my oil brushes Gamblin’s Gamsol and Escoda’s olive oil brush soap do the trick. Allback’s linseed oil soap is my heavy-hitting back-up for really difficult brush cleaning and other disasters.. During a recent hot spell I leaned against a wet oil painting in a white linen shirt. The Allback’s got that shirt clean. The Anderson & Sons Stainless Steel Brush Washers filled with Gamsol work great for me.