Leather Mask Work

Thanks to a famous leatherworker and some books, I'm starting to work on a leather and metal mask. So here's some process shots of the progress.


This is the clay sculpt of the mask. The mask will end above the lower jaw.





A slow-gel mold of the sculpt.


Took the positive out of the slo-gel, and poured in Plaster of Paris.


The wood circle on the back is used for tacking leather later.


The master mold next to the slo-gel mold.


The mastermold after its release.



The mastermold carved down to the bare mask, and detailed up to refine the forms of the mask.




More pictures will obviously come soon once the leather is formed to the mold. The left eye will have a metal, cyborg eye (suprise suprise) and the right forhead will have brass tubing protruding from it.






See you space cowboy....

More Mask Research

I've been doing more and more research into masks. It seems that I can't get masks out of my mind. Something about the changing of one's face to become someone else, or application on anonymity, just seems interesting and appealing to me. Through my research, I've found an absolutely amazing book that teaches how to make traditional leather masks. I will be doing this as soon as I get the leather. I also found a great website with a vast selection of masks and information on them. Here's a link.

Masks of the World

They had a lot of different masks, and loads of information on them. Here's some of my favorites.

I liked this one because it's a wood and copper Iroquois mask. Very interesting.

This is a wooden mask from Switzerland

Wooden mask from Bulgaria


This is a cool Korean wedding mask. It's very similar to the Commedia dell'Arte style masks.

So there you go....Cool pictures, cool link.

See you space cowboy....

Corrosion

Well I spent the day today attempting to make natural, desert-like corrosion to a raised copper bowl. This task sounds simple, but isn't...At all. Most of our corrosives are done in techniques and methods that we've learned to make controlled bites. However, accidental and natural seems to be harder to accomplish when done on purpose. But I made a valiant attempt.




Here's a picture of the attempt:

How I did it:

I covered the bowl with my resist of choice (nailpolish), then did a quick contained sandblast (containt the blast with a tupperwear container with a hole as to not contaminate the sand with nailpolish). This removed sand-like absrasions in the nailpolish. I then did a Ferric Chloride etch for about 90 minutes into the surface. I then cleaned off the nailpolish, and tocuhed up with a bit more sandblasting. Just a bit though, and an uneven job at that.

The sad part is that the vessel was pretty well planished. But oh well, that's art.

This vessel will be the base of the Memento Mori Maximum.

See you space cowboy....

Hunt for Inspiration

So I've been looking around at some inspiration for my mask ventures. I really enjoy making masks, but have a hard time coming up with ideas for them.

Well, since I'm so into the whole Steampunk thing, I started there. Generally speaking, Steampunk masks are based on two things: goggles and gas masks. Right now, so soon after my monocle, these two things don't seem so appealing to me. But here's some pictures anyway.

Those, right now, are not my goal. So in my struggles for ideas, I decided to trace back those roots a bit. Steampunk is the combination of fantastical, industrial, steam-powered machines with the beauty and elegance of the Victorian era. Obviously, those previous masks are much more on the industrial side. However, I decided to look at the Victorian side of masks. We've all seen the masquerade styles, which are pure influence of Victorian masks. These masks allowed for prominate social figures to have relative anonymity.

Two pictures of Victorian masks caught my attention. Pay particular attention to the depth and peircings. They are obviously doable in metal.

See you space cowboy....

Coming Soon!

Here's some sketches and descriptions of some works in progress.


This first one is called Memento Mori Maximum. This thurible is entirely inspired by the chlorine crystals that I discovered in the acid cabinet. It is smithed from copper, with copper crystals at the top eroded to show the green crystals underneeth. The green parts will be cast from resin. There's some other suprises in store for it. The point of this pieces is to show an industrial erosion of the natural crystals. It will have some of my normal aesthetic stylings, heavily influenced by the Steampunk style, but will have a taste of the organics. It follows my favorite type of dichotomy in which we pit nature against machine. The way I like to think of it is "The organic goes to the machanic."






This piece is a production piece that I am working on for my opening at Culturshoc in Toronto. It is a leather and brass cuff. In this sketch, the black is all metalwork, the red is leatherwork.


So there you have it. I'm working commercially and artistically at the same time.











See you space cowboy....

Life-Changing Experience

So I was cleaning in the studio. Specifically, the acid cabinet since I know a lot about the acids. In the back, there was a Tupperwear container that changed my life. The container was marked "Copper Etch." The solution was brown, endicitive of Ferric Chloride, which is used to etch copper. Ferric Chloride removes small amounts of copper at a slow rate, allowing for patterns and designs, as well as for technical specs like circuit boards. I picked it up and noticed that the container was a bit heavy, so I opened it to see what I had to do. When I opened it, I saw something undescribably beautiful! Green crystals everywhere! Likely, it was chlorine crystals.

Here's some pictures of the crystals.





I tried to remove some (with gloves, rubber apron, respirator, and eye protection on of course), but they crumbled in my fingers. So after my moment of awe and shock, I then realized that this crystals are living out their lifespan, and that I had the incredibly unfortunate task of ending it. Using ammonia, I neutralized the Ferric Chloride. But as if in a crazy way of laughing at me, the crystals had one last ounce of beauty to them. In their neutralization, they made an absolutely beautiful brown and blue chemical cloud in the water.


I know that this all sounded like some interpretive BS, like the Family Guy plastic bag in the wind thing, but it's not. This was seriously, for me, great inspiration and seems to be the memento mori maximum.






See you space cowboy....

I've Been Busy

Well, I've been working harder than ever! With two companies interested in selling my production pieces, I've been trying to make that fly by! So here's some pictures of what I have so far.

So keep an eye out for this going on sale soon.

I also made another piece. This piece is called The Steak Knife of the Steampunk Serial Killer. It is made of brass, copper, and wood. I actually forged out and serrated the blade of the knife myself. Why is there a crank, you may ask? Well, when you crank the crank, it maked the blade go back and forth like a turkey carver. And it actually works!

I also took more photos of the Myconocle.

So there you go...I've been busy.

See you space cowboy....

New Website and Cards

Well, I've decided to re-do some things in my medical time down. So I switched my website over to make a bit more sense. I've been using Hw7online.com as a website since I was in high school. Well, I've grown up a bit (just a bit) since then, and have more egotistical needs from my website, so I switched it over. The new site's address is jphii.com. Why? John Paul Harris II. There you go. Nice and simple.

With the new site comes a new, upgraded photo gallery as well as a resume. So go check it out and favorite it.

Hw7online.com will (for a short time) forward you to jphii.com.

Also with a new site comes NEW BUSINESS CARDS!
Here's what the new ones look like:

Front:

Back:

So there you go. So go.

See you space cowboy....