Hippo for Christmas

Thank you to those that came out to SF Bazaar and Cal Academy’s NightLife and shopped with all of us crafters and artists. We really appreciate the support!

Shop news, the closing down has begun. My shop Biology Class is going to close as of January 1, 2017. It is time for me to move on from making specimens in such a focused way. I am going to pair my art down to having one shop.

I am going to extend my holiday sale through December 15th still HOLIDAY2016, this works in both shops.

So come get goodies! Everyone wants a Hippopotamus for Christmas. My Hippo and Crocodile ornaments will be posted to my soon to be only shop Sunday at 10am.

Hippopotamus for Christmas

Crocodile Bring the Ham

The Crocodile carries the Christmas Ham because, what else would a Crocodile politely bring to the holiday dinner?

I am also going to post at least two new prints of work I made this year. Red Riding Hood and Tadpole. Maybe Peacock?

tadpole-caseygirard redridinghoodcaseygirard peacock-1caseygirard

Specimens for SF Bazaar at Maker Faire

Totally excited that I got into SF Bazaar at Maker Faire! Go here for details. It has meant that I am in deep production of many specimens. Here are some works in progress and I prepare them for full preservation. Taking pictures before the caps go on is nice because you get a little more light on their heads.

I’m working on making many small and mini specimens for the show. Here is the first batch. They are all of the amphibian and reptile creature variety.

smallspecimens

I am introducing Hippopotamus Specimens to my repertoire. Here are two angles of one of the Hippos.

hippo-specimen-2 hippo-specimen-1
diplodaucus-specimen

closeup-longspecimens

I am playing with longer specimens within my regular jars. This is a long Diplodocus wrapped a bit around itself to fit into its jar.

Finally for this post of new, the new long vials. They will have amphibians, reptiles, and sharks.

long specimens

These are the new categories I have gotten to thus far. I have some other ideas I’m hoping to flesh out by May 20th. Now that this update is made, I’m going to get to it!

A Hippo for Christmas

A new beginning. I love painting but, I also love building with sculpey or other clay. These two styles of mine have been at odds with each other for years. I feel like I had to take a long while away from finishing major illustrations to play with these mediums to find the way to bring them together. My family Holiday card, per delays it ended up being a Valentine’s Day card, was my first in depth exploration into a full image with sculpey and paint. I started out building a structure. A large sculpey project is best built with armature.

step-1CGirard

I had wanted to make holes in the back of this armature to attach the sculpey build to the wood. This insuring its full attachment to the piece. It did not work out on this attempt and I will be continuing to play with that to see if I can make that happen. I ended up using a strong epoxy which, worked just fine. The next step was to put down a base layer of sculpey on the armature.

firstlayer-CGirard

Once I had the hippo and ground completed I put together the children. I planned to paint everything but, really enjoy mixing and creating colors with sculpey. I also like having a colored base to paint on top of.

middle-Cgirard

Once all the sculpey was completed I painted the background, glued down the cooked sculpey and then painted the sculpey. I used some found objects, dried plant pods, to make the shrubbery on the ground. I liked the added depth. Sometimes the best solution in a dimensional piece is a found object.

Finished-CGirard

I am very happy with how this came out. I feel good about this direction for my illustration. My goal now is to complete a new portfolio with pieces like this. I am going to be in a Women of Peninsula art show in the fall. I am going to use that as a jumping off point for what themes I will apply to these pieces. I’m looking forward to the process.

Good Intentions Fall Through

Well as hopeful as I was to get my blog set up with scheduled posts it just didn’t happen. My pregnant brain did not bring it together for me to make new art that I wanted to post for you. Also the past week has been a lot of scrambling to be prepared for a new baby. But!, I have the finished piece of Hippo and Monkey Dancing. It was fun to use sparkle paper and sequin paper for their dresses. They didn’t leave much room for adding color to them but, I worked it in.

And now I must take a leave to bring a new member of the family home. I will do my best to get back on the blog regularly. However, remember I did not get a chance to set up posts in advance so it may be some time.

I will miss you all stopping by and miss checking out what you are working on! Go be creative!

Taking Back Ground

I seriously misjudged how I would feel the last month of pregnancy. I only remember working almost 9 hour days the last month of my last pregnancy so, I didn’t see it coming that I would not be able to keep up with my own work this time. However, chasing a kid all day and trying to finish all my client work before baby’s arrival is a different set of circumstances.

I’m going to try to get myself set up this week to ensure that there aren’t more big gaps in blog posts. We just have to see if labor cooperates, I think it will.

I finished the hippo piece that I was having a lot of fun with. It has been delivered and now I can share it. Of course, you know my pregnant brain forgot to scan it! So, we have to wait for the person who received it to send me a photo. However, I do have my pastel color comp for you first.

I loved drawing these sassy dancing ladies.

Illustration and Musings

by Casey Girard

Tag Archives: hippo