Today: clothing details, tried the puppet out on the backpack frame, walking around the yard (doesn't like wind but none of these giants do.) Now down to the details. Spend the second half of the day working on the horse head. We are finding a lot of pins and needles on the head, still attached to thread and holding stuff up. I guess we ran out of time last year. Also, it was hard for everyone working on the horse head, as it was 12 feet in the air...not so comfortable to work on...the feet were all done! Hmmm.
The ladder is 8 feet tall, for scale.
FYI: Things that worked: 3M spray adhesive, hot glue, sewing, thermo plastic mesh, silk.
Things that did not work: Krylon plastic paint ("no prep, just paint it on..bonds to plastic") - scratched right off, craft knives (blades just kept falling out), drills (of my three, none of them worked all the time).
Things yet to find: Good bamboo of the right length!
I had to go get the giant puppets (General and Mrs. Vallejo) from the fair today (they won the blue ribbon for best booth for the Vallejo booth) and go to the last 4th of July planning meeting, but still we are pretty much on schedule for the dressing of the Lady Liberty. No final photos of her clothes at the end of the day, as the wind came up and we had to lower her, but below are a few earlier views.
Today we started work early because costuming the giant had to be done before our coastal breezes come up. Well, they never came, and, while we planned to stop and about 1:00 and take the afternoon off for some much needed recreation (of some kind!) we ended up working all day anyway.
In a fit of "desire for perfection" I decided that the hand was holding the torch at the wrong angle (Valerie thought so too) and so I tore into the finished hand and wrist and arm, destroying and rebuilding. I imagine no one else would have cared, but here you can see where I have put them back together (just when we thought papier mache-ing was over forever!)
To the left and in the photo below you can see the pin and groove system I devised to make stops in the movement of the arms and in this case, the wrist, to keep them from going farther than looks normal. The pin fits in the groove and prevents movement beyond a certain point.
It was just the three of us working today. Here Valerie takes a break from sewing the gown to contemplate Bellas hard work.
Bella's technique in detail, for those who want to study her "style."
And also, at the end of the day we are too tired to write much. Today is Saturday. Tomorrow is one week until the parade. We had great help today from Jessie (again! Yay Jessie! Loyal Puppet Builder!) and Ilona and her son, Tenzin, who is good with a hot glue gun! (photos below.) Tomorrow in the morning, when the wind is low, we begin the costume!
Ilona works on the boat prototype here (below is Valerie demonstrating it. Ilona's son, Tenzin, above, hot glues supports on the spikes.
Just Valerie and me. Slogging along. More papier mache-ing, and starting to paint. Body tomorrow, and clothes over the weekend. Enjoy the photos.
The title says it all. Today, besides all the gluing and drying, I started painting the head, made the sausage curls (she does have them!) and made some headway on the torch. Photos below.
The papier mache-ing continues. I am starting to worry about the weight of the papier mache as we have already used about 3-4 lbs. of flour to apply the paper. The first two "human" giants I made were about 17 lbs each (and no papier mache.) I wonder if this one will be heavier. Here Bella rests as the body parts dry.
The Lady Liberty head gets its first coat of primer. It will be interesting to paint a green skinned person and still try to get some definition and feature...that will come soon. The shrinking of the drying paper over the thermoplastic casting has caused the face to distort a bit from my original sculpture, but that can't be helped at this point. Lesson for the future.
Making the torch has been a quandary...trying to decide what to make it out of that would be light and give the right look. We searched for baskets that would have the right proportions but with no luck. Now, with time moving on, I took a 5 gallon bucket with a cracked bottom, and cut it down, scalloping the edge and then distorting it with a heat gun. Now we are moving forward again! Not as elegant as the original, but this is a puppet, after all.
Repairs on the Mare's head!
The Mare's head was damaged on the move last year out to Mare Island Preserve Visitor Center (a windy afternoon on the back of a flat bed truck!) I have begun repairs. I had forgotten how huge the mare is. The head is about 4 feet long. Wow! Even though I made it, I am surprised.
The Solano County Fair opens tomorrow (June 23) and giant puppets Mariano and Benicia Vallejo will be there in the City of Vallejo's booth, to answer questions about the 4th of July parade and what it is like to be 10 feet tall! Obviously the best booth at the fair!
(to put things in perspective, the black curtain behind them is about 7 feet tall.)
Yet another day papier mache-ing (Jessie, who worked with us last year on the horse, is back, adding layers to the arms and head!)
New knowledge: Not only does papier mache shrink when it dries, but as it shrinks over styrofoam, certain parts of the foam compress whereas others do not do so as much, so the arms that I so lovingly carved into nice rounded shapes have morphed back into to blocky shapes. They will look fine on the puppet but are not how I envisioned them.
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