All Hail Lil Seezer! Part I

If your insomnia has been getting the better of you recently and you have been visiting my blog from time to time you might remember that last year I wrote a POST regarding the piece Bro Kin. In a portion of the piece there was a Julius Caesar bust.  Not being content to just make a 2-D Caesar, I felt that the time was right to make a 3-D Seezer as well.

So here we go!

I start by making the internal support structure out of plywood and lumber.  For the keenest of observers, you will spy a single piece of stained green lumber left over from Terry Rathje's and my sculpture Vestibule -which was part of Terry's solo show (Questionable Architecture (LINK TO TERRY'S SHOW)) at the Figge Art Museum back in 2013.  Anyway, both of us are slowly, but surely repurposing the wood we used.

Another look at the base for Seezer through the arm of Captain Galactikka (look for the Captain in an upcoming post!).

I add two arms, and some chicken wire to create the body.

Then I take the whole contraption outside and hit it with several cans of spray foam.

The foam flows around all of the layers of chicken wire, expands and hardens, to create a pretty solid sculpture body.

The foam cures by pulling moisture from the atmosphere.  Until it hardens, it is a wickedly sticky mass of unpleasantness.  A hearty misting of water really speeds up the hardening/curing process.

Then I leave him outside to soak up a few rays.

The next step is to take an old serrated steak knife a carve along the profile in order to smooth out (cut off) all of the bumps.  This gives Seezer a smoother profile.

I am going to coat the spray foam with painted/gesso-ed fabric.  But before I do that, I run strips of duct tape along the foam, so I can then hot glue strips of fabric on top of the tape.  I use the fabric strips as anchor points for the larger sheets of fabric.

Then I just start building up the surface with fabric.  Since Seezer is a pop culture icon/mascot of consumer culture kind of guy, I feel it is more than appropriate to cover his surface with another pop culture material -old blue jean denim.

Then I just paint, add fabric, paint, add fabric, repeat until it is all covered.

Then I add an old flannel bed sheet.  In this particular case, one that holds a contribution from the jet-setting/globe-trotting, Buckstrum (RIP).

I've added the laurel to Seezer's head.  I still have eyes, pizza, and toga embellishments to fabricate.  We'll cover that in All Hail Lil Seezer! Part II!

Let's close with a detail shot of Seezer.

Next time we'll take a peek at Captain Galactikka in the 3rd-Dimension!!