No.7 - Update 1

Long description-

Disclaimer first - Please excuse the bad photos (nasty orange background, weird lighting). I shot these in my shoebox of a room that's far from ideal for showing off this piece, but unfortunately taking pictures of this one is going to be a task in itself. Getting the flashes far enough away to shoot a larger piece with even light, shooting at an angle without seeing a wall, and getting creative angles without the convenience of simply laying it on a table are all things I'll work out when it's time to take the final photos. I plan on making a very large couple of backgrounds, and I'll also have to figure out a good way to show scale, possibly with people.

Sad excuses out of the way - Here's the most recent photos of No.7 in progress. I'm very excited to see the entire size in place on the wall. I honestly can't back up enough in my room to enjoy it as I'd like. To get the photos I had to use the wide angle lens. The full shot of this clock is very close to what the final will look like, which is usually an indication that I'm coming down the final stretch. This isn't quite the case though. There's a lot of work left to be done on the inside of the clock, and this needs to be done very thoroughly, because this one begs to be explored from all of the angles.

The right side of the clock was a lot of cutting and grinding followed by some interesting trial and error work. I re-did the paper part six times (not so bad), used several techniques, and tried a few different materials before arriving at this solution, which I am very satisfied with. The chosen process involved dousing two layers of rice paper in varying amounts of linseed oil (cut with mineral spirits 50%) to give it a slight amount of translucency. I should also add that for added strength and water-resistance, I let the bottom layer dry a little more than the top layer. Then the pieces were cut, and sandwiched together in the frame of the decorative piece. After that I buried the piece in a layer of dirt, soaked it, and left it for a day. This created the effect I was after, but was very hard to control. If the paper ripped too much, or ripped in the wrong place it was very distracting to the design, so it took a few tries, and required some attention, but in the end the color and texture are exactly what I wanted.