Down Time

work in progress, my first MUNNY

It's been a whirlwind of cleaning, organizing and getting ready for the holidays. There are now small signs of Christmas here, a wreath on the door, the tiny tree is up and garland is flocking the doorway. I sent out some Christmas cards and bought the Christmas ham to share with my family. I guess I need to find a pie though, absolutely forgot about that. Some friends are coming over tonight so I'm making my studio presentable for whoever would like to see it....it's a dining room, don't expect some cool amazing room filled with cool amazing things. In fact almost all my art is NOT EVEN HERE. And actually the get together is being held next door at my friend and landlords place so I don't have to break my back trying to be the hostess with the mostest awesome house. I'm an artist with 3 cats and too much stuff, it's never gonna be pretty. But I digress, this blog is about that creepy looking head up there....

I needed some downtime from working on serious stuff, from worrying about health and money woes and a break from cleaning so I opened up my MUNNY yesterday and brought him out to work on FINALLY. He came with some cool little items like fake hair, a teddy bear, a wrench and a lightning bolt! My goal was to just have fun with this thing and get a feel for working on vinyl. I thought it would be a lot easier than it actually is. I guess I'm a bit of a perfectionist and not used to the way this thing does not "absorb" the paint very well. From the beginning this thing challenged me. First I primered it and began  a light spraying of basic colors on it's body. This has to be done VERY LIGHTLY as each layer shows up drippy if you're not careful, of course I learned this the hard way. After the munny fell over while WET with spray and scratched his belly paint off I had to get some denatured alcohol and rub ALL THE PAINT OFF and wash him and start afresh. After this was accomplished I began actually applying the paint. I hated it. It wasn't smooth enough for my tastes. So from the get go this little Munny was basically shaking his butt at me and sticking his tongue at me and challenging me to a duel. Hence...the tongue.

My original idea was a very Nature based Munny as thats what I deal with in my own work. My colors and symbols, etc. I really like the Chinese opera masks and wanted to incorporate some of the designs in my toy and the mouth looks a lot like my sun totem I did. I just let me brain do what it wants and guide me along, I tried sketching a little idea out but don't want it to be so asymmetrical and uniform. That's just not me.

So we'll see, if I get this done in time for the SHOW ME THE MUNNY show then awesome but if not it's just been a learning experience for me and a little fun hobby trying to kick this things butt.

Stick it's tongue at ME will it? I'll show him!!!

Hope everyones doing something fun for the holidays!