CC3C Challenge 4 - Bronze Egg with flying things

I'm participating in the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge on the Studio L3 blog by Linda Ledbetter. Challenge 4 is sponsored by The Funkie Junkie with additional prizes also from Tim and Mario! Challenge 4 is all about the Stencil and Texture Paste technique found in the Tim Holtz book Compendium of Curiosities 3 on page 49.

I've always been an admirer of the ancient fine art bronze statues in museums. Here is an example, a Hellenistic or Roman bronze lion protome, circa 1st Century B.C.-1st Century A.D, 17 1/2 inches long. At auction, it sold for $98,000, although it was valued at up to $200,000.

I have so much respect for fine art sculptors and have always aspired to be a sculptor in my own goofy way. I thought why not create my own fine art bronze statue using the stencil and texture paste technique. I call it "Bronze Egg with flying things". Ok, it's not really fine art, and it's copper instead of bronze, but the egg is deceivingly metal looking and you are surprised when you pick it up at how light it is as it's only paper mache.

It took a long time to finish the egg as it was hard to do the technique on such a curved surface so I could only do a small section at a time, so it took a few days to get the egg covered. I didn't stick the egg down to the holder as I wanted to be able to pick it up and look at it whenever I wanted to.


While making this project, I found out that there will be a new grand-baby in our family, the first child for my son and his wife! To me the egg represents the wish for this new little life in our family, hope for the joy this new life will bring, and that this new little person will someday be able to "fly" which is to become all he or she is capable of becoming. I planned on creating something else, but it just kind of turned into this as life events unfolded. 

It all started when I went to Hobby Lobby and was wandering down the bargain isle looking for some cheap stuff to alter. I found this wooden object that looked interesting as it had a cup like indent on the top. It also has a hook for hanging on the bottom and I was confused as to why you would want to hang this wooden object horizontally from your wall. Maybe it's obvious to everyone else what this is, but I was thinking the only purpose I could see was to hold an egg, so I found a large paper mache egg that fit inside and I was content. Mostly because the wooden object was priced at $3.00. Wahoo!

So then, I was playing around with some faux finishes and had been experimenting with rusting things, and making some patinas which led to the rusted plastic pig which I determined should fly and be part of the wooden object. So my dream of creating a faux "fine art" piece was shot down by my excitement over rusted items made of plastic and faux antiques. Oh, well.

Small plastic toys rusted with modern masters iron paint, and rust solution.

Small plastic toys with modern masters reactive copper paint and green patina solution.

Rusted plastic pig, dry-brushed with metallic pink paint, and plattered with pink paint. The wings are jewelry parts. There is some bling behind the pig. I refrained from using glitter which was hard.

(side view)

For the stand I used a different colors of distress paint and I marbled it and let it drip all over. Then I sanded it after it was dry. I also shaded the carved parts with watered down black soot distress paint.
I covered the middle section with paper from the Tim Holtz Wallflower 12 X 12 paper pad, and distress inked it with walnut stain which is my favorite distress stain besides black soot.

I used some Tim Holtz remnant rubs for the words. I used some Tim Holtz ball chain to hold some jewelry charms I had that already had a green patina, and a key embellishment with green patina I already had.

(back view)

So this project kind of evolved and didn't turn out anything like my original intention but I'm happy with the project as it makes me happy and that's why I create things.

Also ever since I saw Linda Ledbetter's pig with roses from Challenge 3, and Anita Houston's flying pig for the Vintage Journey site I couldn't stop wanting to have a pig in my project.

The Compendium of Curiosity 3 challenges have been very fun as everyone is so creative and talented. It's fun to post along side all of you!

Through the Compendium of Curiosity 3 challenges I found out about the site A Vintage Journey where they create and share project inspired by the style and techniques of Tim Holtz. Their challenge 8  is -- Wings and Things. I have shared this project on their site as well as it is very inspired by Tim Holtz as most of the techniques used are from Creative Chemistry 1 and 2, or the Compendium of Curiosity books.