Yes, I am only going to show 6 lamps instead of 8. No I do not feel guilty and I also do not feel like I have been procrastinating. I feel the Art Project I took on simultaneously while working on the studio projects was just as importand and mind occupying ansd skills expanding and a learning curve and the 3D making experience I currently have no access to at CSM. So I do not feel guilty and I am even considering showing this piece alongside my lamps, as the 7th lamp that never was to be made.
I cannot believe the amount of time and effort that was put into making my son’s Vecna costume. First the idea: “Mum, we’re going All Out, it has to be the best costume ever made!!!” Then the Love and the sadness of knowing this might be the last time we’re making it, the challenges:
How are we goint to make it?! – buy a paper mask at hobbycraft and airdry clay(googled this and found some tiktok & youtube videos)
What are we going to use?! – bought jumpsuit combined with paper mask, aidry clay, gluegun veins(my son’s idea), burnt sienna poster paint mixed with pale pink as well as metallic copper acrylic paint and a layer of purple metallic facepaint
How is it all going to stay on his head?! And on his hands and feet?! – the paper mask base has an elastic to go to the back of the head but it didn’t fit correctly onlce we cut off the nose, it kept falling down. We had to raise the inside of the mask with some additional rolls of aidry clay and then add an extra elastic from top of the head to the middle of the elastic going around the head. We ended up adding a lot of extra to the front half of the mask as the back wasn’t covering the ears, even though we did multiple fittings. Did his head grow overnight?!?
How are we going to paint it to make sure it matches the base bodysuit?! My knowledge of colour helped, we used purple clay as base because there are a lot of purple veiny elements in the jumpsuit. We then painted sickly burnt sienna poster paint mixed with pale pink as well as metallic copper acrylic paint and a experimented with layer of purple metallic facepaint, which ended up looking fantastic and really blending in
What about the veins and pieces that are supposed to be sticking away from the body?!? – we tried baloons, which we used last time, but they did not look realistic anough and also we were worried people will keep trying to pop them. We then wanted to use clay but the problem with it is that while drying, gravity takes charge and everything drops down. We then talked about going to the forest and collecting some sticks and branches and sewing those onto the costume. That worked out really well but the sticks are hard to paint, they poke the person wearing the costume and also we still wanted the feel and a bit of smoothness of the veins as well as the ease of painting the airdry clay. So it was the 3rd trip to hobbycraft and getting more clay…
How are we going to attach it to the jumpsuit?! We ended up sewing the branches by hand onto the jumpsuit, then rolling the clay in our hands and wrapping it around the branches that were touching the body. When making the hands and feet we only used clay as the great thing about this clay is that it actually sticks really well to synthetic lycra fabrics when drying. Julian added some great veins to hands and feet using glue from the gluegun. Overall I would call Vecna’s Curse a successfull family art project, fuelled with love and passion for making and a need to create things together, which is part of my practice and therefore a not-feeling-guilty reason I will be showing less lamps than planned during the interim show
In the end finding out my son will not be able to wear his costume to school and the dissapointment combined with the making of the film was all part of a wonderful process I would do over and over again. If only somebody paid me for this.