Farmer's Hand Complete!

I finished the farmer's hand this morning. Now I will start making the corn out of fabric...it should be really fun!

I am going to buy the Monsanto hand his suit and the farmer's hand his flannel from the thrift store today. :O )

It will be interesting to see how this clay dries. It will more than likely crack but I think that will be fitting. I've only used this clay for the tomatoes and it worked really well for them, but they were small and easy to carve out the insides so they'd dry faster and without cracking.

The fingers were planning on sagging so I cut the armature from the clay monsanto hand I'd built in the summer and stuck the wires into the palm.

This is the end result. The holes in the arm will be to tie the hand down to the board with wire, I also added two holes in the palm since the corn will cover it. This picture is kinda creepy...

I'm excited for this piece! All the hard parts are done. Smooth sailing from here on out.

Monsanto Hand Revisited

I sculpted this clay hand during the summer. Originally it was going to be a final piece and I was going to make a cast of it, but something didn't feel right about it. It didn't feel aggressive enough and it felt more like a study.

I finally have the time to get back to it, so I am making it out of plaster this time (I know I should use Hydrocal...but my hardware store thought I was crazy when I asked for it). I will be cramming nuts and bolts into the plaster as well. This is a view from the front of the armature made of chicken wire.

And a side view...I have gone into this project knowing this may not work...I have already had some problems. I drilled holes through the board and brought wire through the holes to tie the armature down to the wood.

This is a sketch of what this piece will hopefully look like. The Monsanto hand is gigantic hovering over the farmers hand crushing the farmers corn. The small farmers hand gently gives the corn to the people and the powerful Monsanto snatches it up.

Big problem #1! The plaster was too heavy for the wire and it started to topple over, so Jakey searched desperately for a stick for me to put inside. I drilled a hole in the wood for the stick to sit in and tied the the stick tightly to the wire.

The final view of the stick. This reminds me of Fern Gully when Hexxus is oozing across everything. Very frightening! I have been an environmentalist since I was 4 because of this movie. :0 )

This is were I stop for the day. I will build more plaster onto it tomorrow to create a monstrous hand.