At night, I was carving this in the old carriage house (soon to be my wife's sewing chamber and your guest room).
Through that open door, chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer were flying.
I finally finished this pediment project. It looks a little lighter because I took the pictures below right after I had put on the final coat of paint and it is still drying.
Through that open door, chemicals known in the State of California to cause cancer were flying.
I finally finished this pediment project. It looks a little lighter because I took the pictures below right after I had put on the final coat of paint and it is still drying.
Now I might have time to do some painting.
6 comments:
What did you carve it out of?
4 inch thick inulation foam. Blue is the best, pink is pretty good, I had to use some softer stuff that was yellow and it had a aluminum layer that I had to peel off.
I'll have to photograph and send you the thing I made out of Balsafoam and auto paint.
I want to do something bigger, but the Balsafoam gets really expensive.
I need to come up with a name for this thing.
Anyway, here are some photos of the thing I created recently. This is the final result of Secret Project #1 (here revealed for the first time!). I bring it up because of the foam carving connection.
It's very hard to get a good photo of this, and I didn't try very hard, but this should give you an idea:
Secret Project #1
Secret Project #1 from the left
Secret Project #1 from the right
I made this by carving Balsa-Foam with a Dremel tool with a cutting bit. Then I did some "polishing" which, given how soft the Balsa-Foam is, was really more shaping.
I poured a coating of Envirotex Lite over each piece. Then I painted them with Plasti-Kote Kustom Effex™ Kameleon Kolor. Then I poured on another layer of Envirotex.
I made no effort to do any of this especially carefully, so there are some fisheyes in the finish and various spots here and there. And I left the finished piece in my car for a few weeks where it got kicked around. It's just an experiment, so that's okay, I guess.
I would like to do something like this only larger, and in different colors, but Balsa-Foam gets ridiculously expensive as it gets larger. Maybe I'll try the blue insulation foam.
You saw it here first folks!
Does the dremel kick up a fine nose clogging dust when you use it? With any of the foams that I have used I am supposed to be wearing a respirator even if I look at the foam. Back in the day, when we didn't know any better, we would cut the foam with a hot wire plugged into the wall! It would make a perfect smooth line that you could shape. . . and who ever heard of "off-gassing" then?
I've used the Evirotex stuff for a couple of "paintings" that became outdoor trivets for plants. It is toxic too!
That kameleon color is new to me, although I've seen it on cars.
The piece is what I imagined it to be when you described it in an e-mail, except I didn't see the backing like a bas relief, I just saw a free floating figure, no ground.
I paid $80 for a 4 inch thick piece of foam that was 4 ft x 8 ft. It might be cheaper in a big city.
Your piece would be wild bigger.
Balsa-Foam is non-toxic but the packaging admits that it can be really irritating if you get it in your eyes. Which I discovered for myself. I should be more careful, but I always rush into things without preparation.
I tried making my own hot wire cutter for Styrofoam out of a soldering iron, copper wire, and a hacksaw. Plan failed.
The Kameleon paint is for cars, but I'm looking for the auto paint look. The Kameleon is cool because it shifts colors depending on your angle of viewing.
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