Oil Lamp, Napkin Ring and a Blush Brush

My daughter Laura says I have artists ADD. It got the best of me this last week.

I’ve had this project on my work table for over a year. I assembled and/or sculpted all the parts but didn’t move forward because the “belly” required being filled with sand and fish and poured with clear resin. I’ve never poured resin before and didn’t want to ruin the muse – so there it sat (every now and then I’d pick up the box of resin, look at the lamp and put it back down again) – until Thursday.

The muse: a 4″ round glass oil lamp bought at a garage sale for $1.00

The title of the piece: Teach a Man to Fish – From the Chinese Proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.

I’ve been frozen from going forward on any project this last week…too many ideas (clay piece, handmade books, Jewelry, class outline for books and pendant, etc, etc) – I couldn’t decide which one to proceed on – so I read a book (4 books actually). Thursday I had had enough reading and before thinking about it too much I took out the casting resin and filled the belly with sand and tumbled stones, positioned the fish where I wanted them (not where they ended up), mixed the casting resin and poured it. I won’t hesitate using casting resin again.

This is a peek of the fisherman in process… I’m almost finished with sewing his coat that will get embellishments. His face will get painted (he may get hair, not sure yet). He’ll have hands and a fishing rod and will be standing in grass or rocks (not sure yet on this either). He stands approx 7″ from his glass feet to the top of his napkin ring hat.

If you’ve gotten this far – thank you for being interested and staying with this long post. The finished project is in sight – I’ll take better pictures and post more this week.

All the best,

Janet