Ken's Harlequin

A collaborative set of works with the artist Ken Johnson. These are based upon key images in Ken's "Anecdotes and Allegories" show of paintings (for a link to the Gallery website click here)

Part 1 of 3 - Harli Ken's painting of the core image of the Harlequin	To turn this into a 3D artwork it needs an armature.  This was padded out using crunched up newspaper to save weight
The torso is hung up from the roof to fascilliate easy access and bits added in this case by Ken,  until ...	...we get the final figure ...
... before colour and the face mask is added...and lo...HARLI, the harlequin of Indo-Italian provenance
Part 2 of 3 - Donatello the Donkey Ken's Sketch	Ken applies cellulose cement to the steel armature that took a lot of research to work out. Note the handy support he found for the bowl of cellulose cement.
After some level of application of a 2lb hammer to reshape some  less than satisfactory aspects of the armature and then modeling the detail Shrek's great mate emerges ,in the raw, so to speak.	A bit of colour is added and viola...
... one bored but sanguine beast, on wheels... like a child's toy.  This  sculpture is strong enough to take the full weight of an adult riding on its back. The wheels were carved out of a bit of weathered Australian hardwood that I retrieved from an old wooden cattle crush near my studio. The axles were made out of old rusted reo rod and the wheels fixed in place with split pins immersed in acid to age them.  All very authentic!	Notes:  Harli and Donatello are about 80% the normal size.  The one leads the other.   The Vento figure is about 85cm high   The brindled colouring of te donkey was a happy accident. When I was not happy with the finish we had used and sanded it off , it left the variegated patches that sparked Ken's and my enthusiasm for a change of plan.    Although some of these pieces (notably the donkey) are more representative than I would normally do, this was a truly collaborative series with both artists ( who are both used to working alone) sparking off each other while working together.
Part 3 of 3 - Vento carved out of styrofoam and covered with cellulose cement, details added, then antiqued  and finally painted...