Monday, July 27, 2015

"Petra's Piece" - 2015

This Spring, my wife and I took a trip to Slovenia to meet our friend Petra. A few years back, my wife 'met' Petra in an online class for illustrators, (they are both freelance illustrators for the home decor industry), and they hit it off right away. Petra always said we should come for a visit and she would show us her country. I had never really heard a lot about Slovenia before; it sounded so exotic. My wife and I really love to travel and we had been planning to do this for a few years now. Turns out, Slovenia is an amazing, beautiful gem nestled between Austria, Italy, and Croatia. Since Petra and her family were so generous with their time, (they hosted us for 8 days - they drove us around everyday, and showed us all their favorite places), my wife and I decided to give them a gift equal to their generosity. I posted a few pictures from our trip at the bottom of this post.

As a "Thank You" gift to Petra, Uros, and family, I made this small shadowbox. 
For a while I've been toying with the idea of doing 'group shots' - portraits of multiple figures, concentrating of the faces and the juxtapositions of the group. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out my idea. I really like how this turned out. It took extra time to get the faces right, but it was worth it.

A side shot to show the depth. The piece measures 10" x 8.5" x 4" and sits on a shelf or can be hung on the wall. The box was made from salvaged wood.

             Petra and Uros.
             Tim and Sophie.


Starting out with the polymer clay sculpting. My reference pics are on the left.

I developed the 4 heads concurrently, so their sizes were proportional.


I mounted the figures to a small board before placing the whole assemblage into the shadowbox. That way I could get the placement correct, and then just glue the whole thing into the shadowbox. Their bodies are pieces of pine.

One last shot before I put them in the shadowbox.

More about Slovenia..........

Map of Slovenia.

My travel pics, in no particular order......

Beautiful mountains in the western part of the country.

Hiking near the Julian Alps.

The Škocjan Caves. (Can you see the man in this pic?)

A church on Lake Bohinj.

 Lake Bled - a must-see. (I didn't take this shot.)

Ljubljana, the capitol of Slovenia.

 Napoleon's Bridge over the Soča River.

 The Soča River. Yes, that's the real color - amazing.

The Soča River.

A small town on the Soča River, where we stopped for cappuccinos.

Piran, on the Adriatic Sea.

I have more pictures from our trip here if your interested. More? Yes, 223 more.

Also, whenever we travel to Europe, we always go by Rick Steves' recommendations - and we always have an amazing time. Here is his program on Slovenia.....

Go see Slovenia, you will not be disappointed. And the people are wonderful.

Thanks for looking.

tom

2 comments:

  1. I am glad, you visited our country. I admire your work. You should sell such frames, models of real people from pictures. For reasonnable price I would order our family frame. Hope to see new posts prom you.

    Bye

    Jure

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  2. Hi Jure, Your country is so beautiful - my wife and I want to come back asap.
    Glad you like my work. I had thought about doing that but they are very time-consuming. I may do it under special circumstances.
    Best,
    tom

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