#wesley britt

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It has been a long, long time since I had a dedicated painting area set up! But now, FINALLY, I should be able to start pumping out some kickass art!

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #5, The Hydra Hey everyone! It'd been longer than I intended since my last real post. I've been crazily busy. I'm nearly finished with another sculpture! But first things first, I've been meaning to show this off and talk about it a little. Picture 1: The finished product! Actually, there are several finishing touches I have yet to complete, but this is essentially it. I can hardly believe it actually worked. Picture 2: This isn't where I began. I actually began by trying to carve out of the back piece of an old guitar, but the wood was layered super thin with the grains crossed and I couldn't carve it correctly. I found a piece of wall paneling and started over, first by a light sketch, and then by outlining. Picture 3: Here you can see I've added details and carved around the edges. Picture 4: After totally removing the dark colored paneling top, I took a picture of the break away. Picture 5: Here is the beginning detail, edge cleanup, etc. tumblr only allows ten pictures per post, so the jump to the next one is kind of jarring... Picture 6: Here it is nearly complete! If you look close you can see it's been decapitated in the middle, going from five heads to four. I can't tell you how hard that was for me to do- I'd spent hours and hour detailing it. But the composition was wrong so I sucked it up and knock it's block off. At one point in the in-between process, I accidentally broke off a section of the tail, and it looked so much better I kept it off. During the process I busted two different heads off by accident, and tail in two different spots. The reason part of it is yellow is because I put a light stain on it just before the final detailing. That allowed me to see where I was at. It's a trick i'll probably use again if I ever do another inlay. Picture 7: The carving was warped, and the wood too strong for double stick tape, so I picked up some street sweeper brush wires and used those to paste the carving down. I first wrapped them in tape so that they didn't damage the work. Once that was done, I traced around the entire thing with an exacto knife. I took my time and was very careful not to push the carving. Picture 8: Once that was complete, I began carving out my guitar to hold the work. I have to say that this was the most tense and emotionally difficult part of the entire process. I had no idea if I'd done the outline correctly, and I felt like I was performing surgery on my best friend. I know it's nerdy, but I had to stop and hug my guitar every now and again to reassure it. Or me. Lol. Anyway, I just chose to have faith in myself and take it all the way. In the end, it was almost perfect. Carving out the guitar took a good three days. Finally, I lacquered the hydra and glued it in. I had to glue it in several steps. I finished the morning of the radio interview. JUST IN TIME! During the interview, it was hard to see but several sections were raised up still. I ended up gluing them a good week later. Pictures 9&10 Details! I have to say, I'm really pleased with how it turned out. And I'm amazed it's actually done. I began this in October of 2015, and then had to put it down for six months while working on commissioned projects. It's really quite a relief. Thanks for reading and following my humble little tumblr blog! There's more excellent content just around the corner...

[imp-perfectionist]

Last week Heather Hanson interviewed me on 99.1, Portland FM! Here's the recording of it. This being my first experience of this sort, I was nervous as all hell. About five minutes ahead of tome I decided I didn't have time to be nervous and refocused on what we were about to do. But it didn't stop me from shaking. The first song and interview bits went off perfectly, but the second song was really tough. I kept forgetting things because my jacket had cut off the blood supply to my strumming hand at the elbow, like a sweaty tourniquet, and my hand kept having weird sensations. I took it off after the second song and the third was much better- except that my fingers had begun to sweat and kept sliding off the strings. And somehow, all in all, it turned out really good anyway. In other news, i've been very busy. I'll have a post regarding the guitar that's in the picture here very soon, and after that some figure sculptures I've been commissioned to do for a midwife, centering around motherhood.

[imp-perfectionist]

Amalgamystic Costume: Part 1 Hello again everyone! I've been working on this pretty heavily for a while, and just realized that this could easily be the new project we document. I began working on this back in late 2014, but due to priorities I have been unable to continue until now. This is the costume for my Singer/Songwriter persona, The Amalgamystic. (You can find me on Soundcloud easily, but if you do, please don't judge me too harshly by what's there! It's been since Nashville that I've done any recording.) The first three pictures are of the entire costume from where it's at right now, sans blindfold since it's hard to take a picture that way. (That's what's hanging around my neck.) I have to thank Leigh Torrance for helping me along the way. She used her sewing machine and spent several days helping me get the pants made up. Anyway, the first thing we should notice is that it doesn't work. Yet. There is a very long way to go with this before the entire costume is put together and complete, but the biggest problem is obvious- the cut of the top coat around my waist elongates my torso and spoils the curves in the pants. In pictures 4 and 5, you can see where the coat is at. It started as a full suit jacket. I took the sleeves off and sewed the edges, then wrapped each side with a shoelace. So that part is complete. On the back, you can see where Leigh sewed on a section I cut from one of my T-shirts. In picture 6, there's a closeup of the line i've drawn to cut the bottom. Before I make the cut, I'm taking care to backstitch around the inside of it. This keeps the liner in place and the edges from fraying too badly. Picture 7 is a close up of this. I'm doing one side, and when it's cut out I'll either use it as the pattern for the other, or do something asymmetrical.

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Guitar #6, Part 5 Hi everyone! It's been a few days since my last post. Sorry for being so erratic! I'm dealing with some health issues and haven't been able to work as much as i'd like. I carved the headstock. Initially i had intended something more complex, but when I reached that all the fire went out of me and I decided it was pretty good. I like the idea of the six there, putting the sequential number on the instrument itself. It'll be different every time, but every piece will have my symbolic signature on it and the number designating which piece it is in the order of creation. I think that will give some of these earlier, more experimental pieces more value later on. I discovered that envelopes are absolutely genius for covering a guitar in preparation to spray the varnish. There are a couple of pictures of my setup and whatnot. The last two pictures are a close up detail comparison of the art before and after the varnish. I hadn't attempted to varnish acrylic before, and so all the detail got smudged. In fact, it changed the whole style. I'm not too unsatisfied with it though. For some reason I almost like it better. Maybe because it's darker and broodier and somehow that fits nicely with life right now. I don't know. However, I have discovered this strange phenomenon where I screw something up every time and somehow that mistake helps me to fall in love with a piece even more. Kinda like that moment when you apologize to a new friend for the first time and you have that sudden sense that you're that much closer. You weathered the storm. Like that. Next i've got to varnish the head and sand the whole thing into a shiny shiny finish! Considering how i've been feeling, it could take me a week or two to finish. But i'll do my best to get this beautiful (and beautifully scarred) baby out there. No one's got a claim on her yet... Maybe she'll be yours. Maybe you'll be the first one other than her creator to touch her strings; To make that first chord and know she's singing just for you. Guitars are some of the most wonderful things I know of in this world. I hope that I can continue making these really unique pieces and that they find heartspace with someone who will find endless songs in them. Thanks for following me and sharing my posts everyone! It's amazingly encouraging! :D

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #6, Part 4 Hey everyone! It's just about finished. Next step, the varnish. Then we'll see how it *really* looks. Also, the light I took this last picture on doesn't really do it justice. There will be more detailed pics later. In any case, next I'll be carving on the headstock!

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar 6, Part 3 Here's the beginning of the art process! I began with a pencil sketch of the woman, then climbed on top of Cougar Rock and used the background as reference for the rest of the sketch. Next, I did a loose layer of watercolor over the pencil sketch. Once that's done, any pencil lines are going to be locked in, so if you're doing something similar, make sure you're okay with that. Then I did a more locked down ink sketch over the foreground. I really love how this is turning out already! I can't wait to see how the more intense color sits on it! :D

[imp-perfectionist]

Guitar #6, Part 2 Once everything is cleaned and removed, the sanding process begins. There is more than a millimeter of varnish on this guitar. Reaching the point of the first picture took upwards if two hours using 150 grit sandpaper. Granddad said he had a power tool I could use, so I did. The second picture shows the guitar after we used the grinder. It was difficult to control, particularly because the part of the disk that would touch down on the guitar wasn't always the part I expected. Even though it's messy, the rounded bits still strike me as very beautiful. I also did the headstock, which you can see in picture 4. Once the grinding was done I got back down to the hand sanding and smoothed it out until it felt right. I had no intention of getting all the varnish off. The process of sanding reveals a nice organic shape, and that shape will in turn affect and inspire the work. Finally, as a bonus I went to church with my grandparents and did kind of a cool little sketch while I was sitting in church. Not really sure what it is... Man church is a thing I haven't been to in a long while. And I have to say it feels exactly the same as it used to.