Tuesday, January 1, 2013

C is for Cortez

Cortez The Cat
I'm in love with Cortez!
This is a recently finished commission for Kevin as a gift to his sweetheart Kate.  Cortez is their kitty who likes to hunt earthworms and has a hook tail.  Thank you so much for finding my work guys!  I hope you enjoy little Cortez. :)

360 View of Cortez
360 view of Cortez
This was another experiment at combining different colors.  I really love how the stripes came out.  Adding color like this is tricky, you can't directly melt the wax onto the crayon.  The wax that is on top will just pop off after it's cooled.  To get this coloring done I have to carve a deep channel where I want the new color to be, then pour in the melted wax.  Think if it as inlay work.  So each of Cortez's dark grey stripes are made of deep cuts in the light grey crayon with melted dark grey wax poured into them.  The excess wax is carved off, then the body is shaped.  It's a much longer process, but the effects are well worth it.
His white snout is also made from carving a deep oval shaped hole, then white wax is poured in.  After the white snout is cooled the nose and mouth features are carved into the white wax and the dark grey wax poured in.  I hope that makes sense?  :P


Viewing Cortez
Kate viewing the crayons. Photo courtesy of Kevin Turco.
Thank you guys!  This was such a fun project!

2 comments:

Alex Sunday said...

beautiful! i once lived with a giant cat called cortez. (and yes, it makes sense). :)

Diem Chau said...

Thank you so much Alex! It's such a good name.