In the "Lab," or " Why I don't have a social life."

A vendor in Taxco, Mexico was selling these Mermaid and Angel ornaments and they seemed to belong to these frames.  I am not sure how I will mount them yet; most likely I will construct a little box to attach to the back of the frame.  The frames have pages from a Nautical book I bought at Goodwill.  They will be covered with tempered glass.

 I am trying to learn to sculpt.  I was in Duluth, Mn last summer with two good friends and there was a shop with ship figureheads and they intrigued me.  So, I scrunched up some tin foil armature and started to make a Mermaid with polymer clay.  She is going to have reddish-orange hair and luminous green scales.  Then I have to find a place for her!

 First attempt at a ship figurehead; I think I will finish her with long black locks.

 This piece will be a mirror.  It has a thrift shop frame and alot of bling and beads (covered by the green masking tape.)   I finished grouting the top, mixing my own burnt umber recipe for the grout color.  My intention was to bead up the bottom half but, it competed with the top so, I will be tempered glass-ing the bottom half too.  I gave some copper foil an oxidized look with acrylic paint for the bottom half as well.  When I went to get another safety glass window at the salvage shop, I bought an '88 van window for $4 (forgot the make) and it was too tinted.  I am stuck until I get a different piece of glass.  The crown is polymer clay and the embellishments are jewelry and glass I cut.  Bead caps line the outer rim.

 More little tempered glass shrines in progress. The frames are rimmed with millefiori and the shrines boxes are Altoid tins.  I use Apoxie Sculpt or Magic Sculpt to adhere alot of things.  Including the shell at the top of the following frame.

Too much?

An added note: Some people thought that the prayer to plaid in my 4/3/2011 post was a real prayer.  It wasn't.  I combed the Old Testament for verbage ideas and I wrote it myself.  I am not a Biblical Scholar but, I don't believe plaid existed before Christ.  And of course, once Jesus got here, the development of plaid was a natural sequelae.