AMNH October, November

The Marketplace scene!




The ship, with the pots I worked on.

I sculpted the camel's fur back on once the head was attached to the neck. I also applied the hair in the photos above.

The camels are taking over.

I painted these garlic
Then made them into a rope!
Oregano before
Oregano after I painted it
Oregano finished!

So, I was temporarily hired at the museum to finish up the show, and all those photos represent what I was working on, which was, EVERYTHING! It was great, though. I learned a lot and hopefully I'll be back there soon.

AMNH - September, October

What I've been working on this and last month.

One of four camels, fresh out of the mold. Each piece needs 2 layers of "gel", 2 layers of fiberglass resin (laying the fiberglass then wetting it down with stippling a brush over it) and then an edge layer of more fiberglass (then wet) then a gel to seal the edges. So, each piece gets about 9 layers before we can close it up. We hang it upside-down to set it so it doesn't collapse inside the mold.
One layer of gel-like polyester resin.
The mold, taken apart. There are about 15 pieces total.
The large abdomen piece.
Another view.

Pots - replicas from a sunken ship thought to be from the silk road era(s). These are cast in smooth cast and these few are broken open. I sanded the edges of the break to make it look more like a ceramic break. I also chased seams, and sealed bottoms on a lot of these pots. There will be 50-75 total. There are 30 now, 1/2 finished. A long way to go.


Unpainted Rhubarb. I sculpted the two parts together. The leaves are vacu-formed plastic to plaster molds of leaves, and the stems are cast from real rhubarb stems.
Kohlrabi - bulbs cast from real vegetables, leaves vacu-formed and in this picture, I am grafting them together.
Indian gooseberries - I sculpted these, Steve helped me cast them, then I painted them. 1/2 painted gooseberries.
Peepul figs - same process as the gooseberries.

Apartment Therapy.

Along with other recent RISD grads, I have been featured on ApartmentTherapy.com.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/works-by-recent-risd-graduates-093083

Check it out!

American Museum of Natural History

I'm interning this summer at AMNH and I am working on fruits, vegetables, nuts, grains, textiles, luxury goods, etc. for the Turfan Marketplace scene in the November-opening Silk Road exhibition.
I am mostly making faux fruit look more realistic by sculpting onto them or painting them, or both. I am also sculpting things from scratch as well as making molds and casts of real fruits and veggies.
Here are some examples of the work I am doing.
These bananas are 1/2 finished. They've come in as generic plastic things, and by this point I have sculpted new stems and ends onto them, and airbrushed them a bit. They are missing the top parts in this photo.
These apples have been primed because when we got them they were a silly red color. Soon they will be painted, all the stems removed and replaced with real wood.
Finished apples. Hand painted.
SO MANY APPLES.
1/2 finished figs. These were all the same so I cut them up and put them back together to vary the sizes. Then I sculpted new stems on a few of them. I painted them here, but they are still missing their detail work in this stage.
Closer to being finished, but not quite.
Finished bananas.

In most cases, I am given the species of the fruit, and told to figure out what that looks like, then go from the research I do. Sometimes the designers give me exact reference.

With these apricots, I just had to make them vary in color. The shapes and textures were pretty believable.
Sometimes there is miscommunication, for example, like when the designers said "golden peaches" I found reference online saying that golden peaches were a deep red, when infact they are more yellow than apricots. I will start a new batch of peaches next week, but here are the ones I made. They came a light pink color and I painted them red and yellow.
WRONG!
These watermelons are going to be in a lead ice chest that one of the artists is making, and another artist is painting the watermelons. I sculped the stems because the ones that came on them were made of floral tape and wire. In this photo, they are of course, unpainted, but I will photograph them later when they are in the ice chest.
These plums are weird and made of silicone, I just dusted them up to make them look more realistic.
I finally remembered to take a before and after shot.
BEFORE
AFTER

This is seaweed I made from thermoplastic and a heat gun, paint and chalk.


BEFORE
I airbrushed all these, one at a time.
AFTER

And I airbrushed these too.

My next tasks involve sculpting indian gooseberries, and peepul figs, and then casting them so that I only have to sculpt about 5 of each, then painting them.
There's so much more to do!