Happy Halloween! 29 days to go
25 left til haunting hour!
Didn't work at the courthouse Sunday and won't today either. Working on other volunteer project tonight! We are doing a one-act play for Theatre Festival that's happening in Swift Current, Nov. 9-11. I'm Stage Manager/Set Designer/Builder and I've been making decor for the set, scene is in a forest and they are supposed to be camping. Just so happens that I am using the forest theme in my haunt so I can use the props for both gigs.
I've just recently discovered "Monster Mud" [not my name for it but well named!]! If your a kid at heart and loved playing in mud [you know....yummy mud pies!] then you'll love this stuff. I use rubber gloves, as the stuff dries the skin out, and still get the same gooey effect without the skin damage. PoD can't stand paper mache' and so helping with the mudding was out of the question but the minions love the stuff. It's trying to get most of the stuff on the creature and not all on them...although, I did wonder what it would be like if I let them harden....just kidding!
One of my goals for retirement [what's that?] was to keep my hands active by taking up sculpting. I did a bit of it in school and really loved it but it takes up a lot of time and energy, never pursuing it. That was in clay!
My first prop is for Halloween and is the main character in the haunt. "Creepy Hollow" is the name I gave him because he's hollow and looks creepy! He's a tree that stands 7' tall with a root base of 3' x 6'. I even gave him his own set of wheels...he's too heavy to carry for any length of time. Thankfully I have double doors in my place and so does the courthouse! He's constructed out of tenplast [plastic cardboard] and shaped with chicken wire. Then I gave him a cloth coat soaked in monster mud, sculpting it to look like bark. Giving him 3 coats of paint and attached some creepy critters, I now have a huge tree that I will display later in my store year round...that should scare the little kiddies!
Thankfully he won't be going into the play just his other buddies who are a LOT smaller and lighter! Another sculpture is a ring of stones that looks like a campfire site. I need a phony fire for both events. I started the base layout for the stump/stool and will be getting it ready for mudding later. I spent most yesterday putting chicken wire over my "Tomato Plant Holder People" [you know...the wire shapes that hold the tomato plants up] and will be adding them to the mudding assembly line. I take two of these plant holders and duct tape them together to make body shapes, add chicken wire, foam head form and then cover it all in cloth soaked with mud.
My hands are pretty sore this morning, bending wire not only causes scratches and cuts but the stuff that's in/on the wire makes your hands steely colored and very dry. I don't like to use skin conditions as they make my hands feel greasy and I can't have that in my line of work!
Most of my day today will be work related and I am still playing catch-up from sick times.
I guess no time for the wicked [although it would be nice to have the time to be wicked!] and I have to get to designing and doing up estimates. My work/designing time starts around 5 or 6:00 am and the rest from opening time til closing will be for applying.
Gotta go make more coffee!
Orbing out....QoH
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