"But Sari, it doesn't look like a raccoon..."Well, the raccoon died, it had been hit by a car...The jaw bone protruded...I don't work from photographs...I didn't have a model anymore to work from...(Though a long nosed baby raccoon did some later modelling work for me)...Austin, a Portuguese Water Dog helped me fill in some of the blanks...I am an abstract artist, & that is how stories by me get told...
the recipe for Sari's homemade marble(her personal invention):
"Circa 1850" powdered waterproof marine glue (resin)...1 part
Aragonite Sand (marble) 2 parts
3/4 inch alkaline resistant glass fibres 1 part
water 1 part
optional: gold powder, or mineral silicate paint (for cement)...to taste
(Truth is, it was an all brown raccoon with a very long & big nose, I think it was a different species than the grey & black & white bandit ones we see usually in Toronto...)
taped to keep them clean while working...the aluminum screen mesh keeps them more separate from each other...
This No-Weld armature was made by cutting pieces of copper pipe, then using copper couplings to join them together...Then I ran wire through the whole thing to make sure it held together well...This was all wrapped in a large amount of chicken wire...It is a very stable form...My newer armatures are built using threaded steel rods bolted together using copper strapping as attachment device...The newer design allows for more curves, since the copper pipe design, well, it is hard to bend pipe easily...A ferrocement teacher named Nick Nickolson inspired my newer curvier design for a no-weld armature...He was welding, but his lines are very elegant & slim, which led me to ponder how I could make concrete more elegant & less boxy...Which forced me to think harder about the how part...