PLEASE GIVE YOUR COMPUTER TIME TO LOAD THIS BLOG- It is filled with images, videos and other resources that may take a moment to load on slower systems. Bridgette Mongeon is a writer/sculptor/speaker/and educator. Her blog, Creative Endeavors documents her work in progress. Ms. Mongeon has several other blogs/websites/and journals. The links can be found on the left margin of this blog.
CONTACT
Ms. Mongeon phone number and e-mail are found on her fine art web site Creativesculpture.com.
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Sunday, May 31, 2009
fooling around- in mudbox
A very good exercise in traditional sculpture is to set a timer and sculpt something as quickly as possible. It keeps you form getting bogged down in the details. As I begin to work in mudbox I gave myself that same exercise. Of course I always like working from funny photographs and I love people, so here is one I found to work from. It felt good to put "gram" aside and work on something fast. I may do a couple more of this one and then it is on to a little child or baby funny face. the first one was done in 28 minutes( I had to go to church) the others 30 minutes.
I thought I would share this with you. As usual maybe you can follow along. This is mudbox. I am working on my first portrait. Here is mom. Yes, the wonderful woman that is found on our podcast, and is known as "gram". Anyway, it is a long drawn out process of sculpting in Mudbox but she is coming along.
This is what all my fuss has been about in the last few weeks, needing more RAM, new graphics card. And now to find the one thing that was bugging me may actually be a bug in OS 10.5.7. But, today I can use mudbox again, and I am thrilled to be able to do so.
I"m so glad that things are being solved. My graphics card should come fed ex today. I waited most of the day and missed it at 9:05 p.m. yesterday. How that happen when we work and live in the same place? What up with that fed ex? For those who don't know. I'm trying to write a book about Mudbox. However my graphics card does not work with the new version of Mudbox for the mac. Making it extremely difficult to make my deadlines with the publisher.
I think I am resolving my retopologizing problems. For those of you who don't know what that means it simply is this. When working in mudbox there is a mesh, that is under the clay that you see when you are sculpting. The mesh has to have an appropriate form. If you think of a window screen the mesh that underlies your piece should have quads and not triangles and be all of similar size. So in other words. If I want to scan a mock up lose clay piece. I will Use the Next Engine Scanner, which I am also reviewing and hope to show how to use in a variety of ways. This is a 3d scanner that can scan my artwork and make it into a digital image that I can then either send for output as shown in the latter part of this you tube video that I created or bring into mudbox. However. The mesh that will come out of this is too tight and may have triangles. I will need to change that mesh so that it can be sculpted upon. This is called retopologizing. My problem is that I have not been able to find a retopologizing tool that is a stand alone tool. I hate for artists to have to go and buy and learn an entire 3d program just to be able to retopologize. So I think I have this finally figured out. I'll let you know. So I have graphics card, and retopologizing tool, more RAM and I'll soon be ready to go. It is a good thing because many chapters are due to the publisher at the end of June, and until this point I have not been able to work on the program. Oh sure, I can open it and play around, but then it might flip upside down or backwards, when I am turning the sculpture and studying it, or worse yet. It disappears. All results of a graphics card problem. Never have I sculpted in the traditional studio when a sculpture has disappeared. It feels good to get things together to proceed.
Yes, it is once again time to have body parts about the studio. What you are looking at are the newsboy waxes. It is hard to believe that in just a few weeks these will be put together to look like the bronze below. The next newsboy sculpture in the edition number 3 is being purchased. More details on that later. meanwhile- pass the word more are available and we can personalize the newspaper to represent a newspaper in history. Maybe your newspaper?
For those of you who wnat to see how the newspaper is changed check out this link showing how we did this for the Tabor City Tribune and the interesting story behind the Ku Klux Klan
Molds, molds everywhere. every time I create a sculpture a mold is made for it to go to bronze. usually I have the rights to pour more than one mold and so I end up with many heavy cumbersome molds around the studio. Since we had the accident in the roof in the shed, these will sit right here. And we also need to build a loft to store these on. OH my not something else on my list of things to do.
I now have Mudbox for the Mac. I'm thrilled and can't wait to see how it works. It will be great to run this in my native operating system instead of on bootcamp. Yes, bootcamp is nice, but when you have to log off and on to do other things that is a pain. Now, lets get busy on writing this Mudbox book "Digital Sculpting with Mudbox: Essential Tools and Techniques For Artists."
I am excited about working in mudbox, but the sculptor in me has a few concerns.
I want to be able to have a blob of clay- push and pull it until I "feel" what I want. Doing this in mudbox can change the topography to something that is unworkable. So. I either need to learn another program and bring in what I want, or... perhaps retopologize what I create. But where does one find the retopologizing tools? That is the part of the learning curve as traditional sculptor goes digital.
sculpting tools are put away to fix hole in roof. Bummer
We had a somewhat small limb fall from great heights and make a huge hole in our roof. This was a massive bummer. Especially since it was in the back of the building and I don't get into the shed of the studio to see this sort of thing very often, and so it rained in the shed of the studio.
We did a marvelous job repairing it. Thanks to my dad who used to do roofing and explained in detail the different "tricks."
Hannah has been interning as public relations intern in the office. We will miss her. She is changing directions in her career and we wish her luck. Her position is open, and I'd appreciate you passing the word. However please also let others who are interested know "must love dogs" for every day at our facility is take your dog to work day!
Hannah wanted to have the dogs in the picture and I thought on the deck would be great, however trying to get two dogs to pose, when one of them is Sam - black lab, is not easy. So we said, how about at the pond? Yes, it is true when you work here you have a beautiful pond to visit and a meditative place to gain your center. That is my sanctuary. You can even say hi to the turtles and fish. Anyway. Sitting on the bridge of the pond Sam went for a drink and then we were slobbered by a combination of dog spit and pond scum. IKKKKK. And that is the way Hannah was sent off.
Thanks again Hannah for your wonderful work. I hope I can soon find someone to fill your shoes.
It was the day before Mother’s Day, 24 years ago when the little sweet child was handed to me. Throughout her life my daughter always had a hard time getting out of the house on time, and that first day was no exception. Fourteen hours of labor, and four hours of pushing, I thought it would never happen. It was my wedding anniversary when I went into labor. I delivered her at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. The next day was—Mother’s Day!
I remember that first feeding, it felt so blissful, until...horrors upon horrors—I fell asleep. When I awoke, I remembered I had a baby, I remembered I was feeding her, but there was no baby in my arms. Yes, I actually looked over the side of the hospital bed, each side, and then under the covers. I was terrified, how could I be a fit mother if I would let my child fall on the floor the first day. There was no child. I rang the nurse. “MY BABY IS GONE!” I screamed. The nurse entered frantically, “ It is o.k.” The nurse worked hard to calm me down. “She is in the nursery. When we came in to check on you you were fast asleep, no one could wake you, I think that long and difficult delivery finally caught up with you, and so we brought her back to the nursery.”
I was crying.
I thought the nurse must think I was horrible, How would they ever let me leave the hospital with her? I certainly did not feel much better with her reply. I might not have let her fall on the floor crashing and causing irreparable brain damage, but I did let a total stranger take my child from my sleeping arms. What kind of mother was I? I know the nurse meant well but I was humiliated, and I simply blurted out, “I don’t believe you.” I said, “I want to see my baby.”
The nurse was smiling when she came back into my room, how could you not smile when you are carrying such a beautiful child. She put my bundle back into my arms. I should have apologized to the nurse, but I was still mortified and embarrassed by my own behavior and my apparent neglect.
I examined my Mother’s Day gift again. After the nurse left, I whispered to my baby, “I know you are my baby, they did not switch you.” Why I would think they would switch my baby, I do not know. Perhaps I had seen too many movies. “I know you are, not by the bracelet on your wrist, but because of those horrible marks on your head from the forceps delivery.” I stroked the marks, thankful for their identification, afraid, that adding to my chance of dropping my child, and having a stranger take her away I might also add not being able to recognize her to my list of horrors in those first hours of being a mom. “You sure were stubborn.” She sure was a sight with those red marks. But a beautiful sight. This sweet bundle just looked back at me, assured that I was the perfect mom. She trusted me, and she had this incredible ability to make all of my fears fade. At that moment, the room, the hospital, everything, even my husband, everything out of the small circle of her and I, the entire world simply disappeared. It was the strangest experience that I have ever had, I have never had one like it since. Everything simply disappeared but her and I.
Prior to this delivery I prayed at the church alter. I looked up at Father Lon and said, “Would you please pray for my baby?”
“For a healthy baby and a safe delivery,” He stated.
“Yes, that would be nice, but would you also pray that my baby, and my labrador retriever Conan, will get along? He is really a member of the family and I’m a little worried.”
“Hmmm,” Father Lon said, “I think there is a prayer about the lion laying with the lamb, let me see what we can do.”
We called our new baby and first child Christina. The name was picked by Conan, that same labrador. While reading baby names out loud, Conan’s head tipped to the side with intrigue as we read that baby name from a book. This was probably more due to the fact that the dog’s best canine playmate was named Nina, and this name sounded close to Christina, but the name took.
That first day in the hospital I saved her baby blanket that she had been wrapped in, took another from the supplies under her bassinet and sent the “smelly” one home with her father. “Let Conan smell this,” I said. “They say it might help introduce the baby. Tell him she is coming home soon.”
We were alone again. My favorite radio station played big band. I phoned them, ecstatic that it was going to be Mother’s Day, and it was my first day with my baby. “I’d like to request a song please.”
They asked, “What would you like?” I hadn’t thought of what song I wanted, I just said, “Anything that you want, as long as it is dedicated to this sweet thing in my arms.”
Not long after I heard the announcer. “Here is something for a special little baby that came into the world just in time to make her mommy a mother on Mother’s Day.” I listened intently to what they had chosen for my child.
“Aint she sweet, see her coming down the street. Now I ask you very confidentially aint she sweet.” It was the old song “aint she sweet?” by Gene Austin 1927. My toes wiggled under the sheets. I looked at her beautiful eyes, lips and nose, as I sang her song along with the radio, one of the many songs I would sing to her throughout her childhood. “Just cast an eye in her direction, Oh me oh my, aint that perfection? I repeat, don’t you think that is kinda neat, I ask you confidentially aint she sweet?”
I’m happy to report the lion did lay down with the lamb or should I say that the cherished family pet soon learned that his nose was an equal height to the high chair, and this new smelly, squiggly family member loved to throw food over the side of her high chair and giggle when Conan would quickly retrieve it and then, as if on command, he would put his nose back up, barely resting on her tray and look at her longingly. It caused an instant rapport. Yes, there was a period of time when Conan had a regular diet of Cheerios and baby food.
My baby was married this year, and I’m sure her husband agrees with the song that was played on her “birth” day. I can’t help but think it won’t be long before she is having a baby of her own, and Mother’s Day will become something that she no longer celebrates for someone else but is celebrated for her. Until then, I still find her incredibly sweet, and confidentially, she is still my baby girl and perfection.
It has been since before October of 08 o that my asthma/allergies were under control enough for me to be able to sing an entire Sunday service. Normally I would cough uncontrollably. Today was the day! Even though I could not take my guitar because of the lower back pain I was thrilled to be able to sing, and not just one song. I sang the entire service. My voice is weak from not having sung in a while, but it is still loud. It was not loud before because I was afraid, afraid to breath deep, afraid to sing. In the service we sang "Stand up for Jesus" I stood, even with a sore back, and I sang loud. It is a milestone and I am very thankful this morning for breathing and for putting the song back into my life. It was missed greatly. I have always felt that singing from the back of the church while playing my guitar was a little ministry. I would like to think that my voice traveled and enouraged others to sing.
Looking over this past year I have seen so many times when I would be kept from praising God. Along with the asthma there was a span of time when my wrist was bad and I had to have the brace on. No guitar playing and no singing. I thought I would die! I would sway, and had the irrisistabel urge to learn sign language so I could sing with my hands. It has been a silent 7-8 months. Or quieter. Anyone who knows me knows that is pretty incredible. I talk, and laugh and I am told it is pretty loud. Thank you God for giving me air, hands that work and a voice. I'll even thank him for the sore back. I know I'll get better. But until then I am extremely thankful.
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