(Plein air) Garden flowers 5

Oil on canvas
46.5 x 35 cm

(Plein air) Back Yard

Oil on canvas
46.5 x 35 cm

(Plein air) Garden flowers 4

Oil on canvas
46.5 x 35 cm

(Plein air) Garden flowers 2 & 3

Oil on canvas    46.5 x 35 cm
Garden flowers 2

Oil on canvas.  46.5 x 35 cm
Garden flowers 3

Metal wire sculpture HUMAN 3

(Click the pic to get a clear image)
Metal wire Headless figure
33 x 14 x 10 cm

(Plein air) Garden flowers

Oil on canvas
46.5 x 35 cm

I haven't painted flowers for a while and they seem waving to me. It's always a joy to paint them and I love so much to being outdoor. While listening to my loud music, my skin feels the sun and my hair feels the breeze. It is an absolute freedom. 

Metal wire sculpture HUMAN 2

(Click the pic to get a clear image)
Metal wire sculpture
28 x 21 x 11cm
HUMAN 2

My head statue model can't make it today so instead I work with metal wire. This is the second one I did for the same subject, "HUMAN". I actually finished it this morning and took those pictures. Two hours later, more i looked at it, more I felt that something was missing. So I kept working, adding the whole arm with a five fingers hand. I thought it would please me but it didnt. So, I took them down. It looks better with only half piece of arm as I had this morning. What a fussy person I am! I should've trusted my first instinct. 

Different angle of HUMAN 2

Different angle of HUMAN 2

Head Statue(Musa)1st. session

Oil based clay

This morning, i began the first session of my third head statue. My friend, Musa poses for me. This is how it looks after three and half an hours work. Musa asked me that i seemed working very fast. I told him that I usually build up the overall form at the first couples sessions. Then i begin to slow down to measure and compare with different angles and planes. I spent a lot of time and energy building up the shape of the skull on my previous statue. Musa has a very interesting hair structure. To me, it's an obstruct form. I'll find a way to express his hair but at the same time I'll try to keep it as simple as possible. It's very much the same concept for the oil portrait I do, "focuse on the part i want and let go of the rest". Hopefully I can complete it within a month. 

Head Statue Dr. Cisneros

Plaster cast head statue
43 x 24 x 49 cm

I spend more than one hundred hours to finish its clay head statue and about twenty hours to have its plaster cast done. It's a long process and physically demanding. Usually, I can do pieces of paintings within two months but for life size head statue, there's only one. I thank my model, Dr. Cisneros for his patience to work with me everyday from Monday to Friday, four hours a day, for five weeks. I really appreciated. 

 I wash it with soap water to get rid of the orange grease, clean it and smoth the join line. 

To open up the molds.
This is the most exciting moment from the whole process. With a hammer and a rasp, i open it up carefully. My body aches and exhausted but my soul's full of joy. 

I put the two pieces of molds together and tighten them with metal wire and duck tapes. With help, I lift it up. My assistan has to shake it gently to make sure no air stay inside of plaster while I'm mixing and puring the liquid plaster in. Fill it up and let it dry for a night. 

I carefully open up the molds then I remove the clay and wash the two pieces of molds with soap water. After let it dry overnight, I apply a layer of isolat agent ( a mixture of grease and a bit of orange color oil) 

I pull out these aluminum sheets and mark the two pieces of molds before i open it up. 

I carefully splash and adding up layers of plaster on the clay statue. Once it's finished both sides, i let it dry overnight. 

Insert pieces of aluminum sheet together to form a wall to separate two pieces of plaster molds. 

Oil based clay head statue ready for the molding. 

The first session of this head statue. 

LAB4 4:6 Yaoling lee

LAB 4:6

text: Katie Numi Usher

https://youtu.be/yuQYIpzLhs4

Today Yaoling Lee brought music to the LAB. This was the first time.

Yaoling commanded the piece to start a few minutes early, she had previously made  sketches mounted on the walls. Some oils and some charcoal drawings.

"Live Painting Music & Dance" was Yaoling Lee sketching as the Pink Puma Ensemble Chelsea Thompson (viola), Joy Shi (flute), Nadiya Sedasey (violin) and Amber Shi (violin) played classical standards and a few contemporary numbers for about an hour. Later she would sketch them, quick charcoal sketches as they played solo.

For the second hour Musa Shaheed played a djembe and as he did, dancer Delbert Quilter moved. A beautiful juxtaposition of body in motion and reverb.

Each pose held by Delbert was answered by the drum's skin under Musa's palms. And all that while Yaoling sketched. Powerful!

For more on LAB4
www. imagefactorybelize. com

From left to right: me, Musa, Delbert, Amber, Chelsea and Joy. 

Photo taken by Yasser Musa

Photo taken by Yasser Musa

Photo taken by Yasser Musa

Photo taken by Yasser Musa

Photo taken by Yasser Musa

This is my dancer, Delbert. 

I did a 45 minute's oil sketch of my musicians playing various pieces of classical music. 

Photo taken by Gina Scott
Me, sketching my dancer movements 

I did a short interview with the reporter from Channel 5, a Belizean tv media at the opening of Katie's LAB4 at the gallery of Image Factory. 

The following pictures are some of the work I did for my LAB4. Charcoal on paper and oil on canvas