A Guest at the Supra!

Here are some of my sketches from Batumi, Georgia a few years back, when I was part of a group of Navy folks who were guests at a traditional event called the "supra," hosted by the Georgian Navy.

I was there as a Navy artist on board the USS MOUNT WHITNEY LCC 20 (we'd just transited the Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and docked at Batumi).

The tradition of the supra involves a great dinner, with guests and hosts going around the table during the evening, each making a toast (with everyone at the table drinking from their cups --or horns, depending!). Georgian food is amazing, btw.

A Mule and His Marine -- the sculpture is cast!

How joyous it is when a project comes to fruition-- especially when it's been a long, intense process involving every bit of your creativity and skills.

Sculpture can be challenging. It is difficult to create something from materials such as clay or wax, and to make it look as you want it to look. To capture the emotions, form and texture of a thing in three dimensions requires hard work, focus, and faithfulness. But with bronze casting, THAT'S ONLY HALF OF THE STORY.

It takes a whole, involved creative process to take the original sculpture, formed by the artist in clay, and cast it in a metal.

Foundry work is the big unsung element of sculpture. So much work is done by the foundry craftsmen, yet the artist gets all the credit!

A couple of years ago I was blessed to have one of my sculptures cast in bronze for display by the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico.

I had begun the work several years before that, and posted about it on this blog, here and here (at the bottom of the post).

Well, the sculpture was brought to a pretty high level of finish when I was on active duty, but due to an early end to my active duty career (I'd been a mobilized Reservist on active duty for eight years, and could no longer stay on active duty in the combat artist billet according to law and regulation), the sculpture sat in the Combat Art Collection gathering dust, hoping for  finish and fulfillment.

A few months ago, the National Museum of the Marine Corps contacted me and asked if I'd be willing to finish the mule sculpture for them, and to assist the foundry to get it molded and cast in bronze, for display at the Museum! I said "yes" of course! So a few dozen hours of sculpting later, and another several weeks of good, hard foundry work at Wegner Metal Arts in Fredericksburg, VA, the sculpture was finally realized in bronze!

Here are some of the photos of the process:

The original, finished in wax, metal, wood, and plaster, arrives at the foundry:

The original is segmented out into its constituent parts, for the next step in the process:

Rubber Molding: (I call this the "chocolate bunny" phase, because the resulting cast wax model is a lot like a hollow chocolate bunny...!):

(the nylon strings I'd used had to be replaced with twine, in order to not leave a residue and cause trouble during the lost wax "burn out" phase...


CASTING IN BRONZE!
The wax model is dipped in a liquid ceramic "slip" and coated in silica, several times, until a shell is around the model. Then, this shell is heated to harden the mold and melt out the wax, leaving an empty mold in the exact shape of the wax model which once occupied it.
Then, the mold is heated once more and molten wax is then poured in, creating an exact replica in bronze of the wax model, and thus the original piece.

Steven and Stewart Wegner of Wegner Metal Arts in Fredericksburg, VA pour the bronze into the ceramic molds.

A Painting on Fire

I was looking once again at the works by Col Charles Waterhouse in the Combat Art Gallery at the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and specifically this piece in the Medal of Honor series about Cpl. Hershel W. Williams and his flamethrower.

It struck me how "on fire" the whole piece is, not only in its colorful and energetic depiction of the scene from Iwo Jima in 1945, but also in the WAY Col Waterhouse expressed it WITH THE PAINT ITSELF: If you look at some of the detail photos, you'll notice that he captured the heat, drama, and chaotic nature of a flamethrower in action using a very modernist technique-- splattering and dripping-- it's like "Jackson Pollock goes to war!"

Though Pollock was non-figurative in his signature technique, Waterhouse utilized that abstract technique to represent something from nature-- and to both denote and connote a visual and emotional truth. The paint tumbles and falls over itself as the colors burst amongst and on top of each other-- it's chaos with an order to it, guided by the artist's hand.

Marines of the 24th MEU on the USS Bataan (LHD-5)

I mentioned in the previous post about my experience as an artist for the Navy Art Collection, and of coming across Marines on USS Bataan (LHD-5), who were training for an upcoming deployment with the 24th MEU.
Here is a painting I did based on that time on board and observing the Marines:

"Filing out to the Birds," acrylic on canvas. 30" x 20".  Marines on the flight deck of USS Bataan (LHD-5) head out to board MV22 Ospreys.

Marines on the MEU

I recently had another great opportunity to go out to the fleet and sketch Marines in their natural habitats. Though the trip was part of my job as an artist for the Navy Art Collection, I of course came across Marines on the LHD (USS Bataan, LHD-5), training for an upcoming deployment with the 24th MEU. These are modest and few, but I thought it'd be appropriate to post them here in this venue.  It's all about the sketchpad, after all-- drawing what you see on location.

In the next month or two, I will have completed several full-color oil paintings and sketches based on what I saw on board the Bataan.  Stay tuned!

Sketching in the Cool Spaces, continued...

 Here are more sketches from my time on board the USS Harry S. Truman:

In the Ready Room for VFA-143, The Pukin' Dogs.

 In Flight Deck Control in the island.

 

Another cool place on board was called the Smoke Pit (Reminds one of the phrase, "The Smoking Lamp is Lit")!

Sketches and the Cool Spaces on a Carrier

Last year, I was blessed to be able to sketch on board a US Navy vessel -- Specifically, the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75). What a privilege it was, to see so many people and sites aboard the floating city, and to be able to sketch what I had the good fortune to see.
I sketched continually, and was escorted by good people around the ship, showing me all the cool spots, where interesting Navy stuff was happening.

Here are a few of the sketches I did:

F-18 in the hangar bay.

 On the bridge.

The Captain in his chair (Capt Ryan Scholl)

Primary Flight Control ("Pri-Fly") .

Damage Control: Always Vigilant

While on board the Harry S. Truman last year, I got to witness a common but very important training event, conducted by the crew-- a GQ Drill (General Quarters). 

"General Quarters" is regularly sounded to keep the crew sharp, and on their toes, ready for any contingency. Every crewman has a duty station when this happens, and they all rush to their battle stations, put on their gear, and do drills. It's a very interesting thing to watch, and it makes you admire the efficiency and teamwork the Navy engages in with every sailor and section on board a naval vessel.

 Getting geared up fast for fire control...

 

"Fire Drill in Aft D.C." 2015, oil on canvas, 20" x 24" 

 

Ten Days Out To Sea! Part One-- Out to the Ship

The last few weeks have held a lot in my life, and I have a lot to post!

I just got back the 30th of September, from a ten-day trip aboard an aircraft carrier and two smaller vessels in its strike group.

I was sent by the Naval History and Heritage Command, to deploy aboard the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and document the life and activities of sailors as they trained for deployment.

I drove down to Norfolk on the 19th, where I took a commercial flight down to Jacksonville, Florida. The next morning, the 20th, I got a taxi out to Naval Air Station Jacksonville to get on a military supply aircraft-- known as a COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery) and was flown out to the USS Harry S Truman, which was not too far out in the Atlantic, undergoing its pre-deployment training, known as COMPTUEX.

The C-2 "COD" ready to take us out to the carrier.

They gave me this "cranial" to wear. "VIP". Crazy, right? It hopefully means, Very Interesting Person...

The chairs faced backwards (this is looking forward from the last row).

The air crewman, looking forward, getting ready to sit down before saying, "HERE WE GO...!

We'd been told to strap in of course, and when we heard one of the crewmen saying, "Here We Go, Here We Go, HERE WE GO...!" we were to sit back in the seat with our head facing straight to the rear, and await the "trap:" when we'd touch down on the deck and hit the arresting wire, coming very quickly to a stop (from around a hundred fifty miles an hour to zero in around two seconds!).

Well, sure enough, that's exactly what happened and boy, what a rush! I've never felt such a huge force upon my body-- as if I was going to be torn apart. My head was tugged back into the headrest, my whole body was sucked into the seat, as if I were going to be sucked through it.  I can only describe it as feeling like the old sequence in the movie, Star Wars, where they make the jump into hyperspace and the stars rush by suddenly-- or I guess it's rather more like when they come out of hyperspace, and it all suddenly slows down (the only experience to which I could compare the sudden change in speed would be "The Volcano" roller coaster at King's Dominion)!  I found myself thinking, "WE'RE GONNA DIE!!! and then the second it was over: "Can we do it again?!"

First view out the rear door of the COD, just after landing.

We were told to follow the crewman out of the plane, and we did so. We were led to the edge of the flight deck, down some stairs and into a hatch in the carrier itself, where we were taken to the Air Travel Office and we were checked in. I was met there soon after arriving by LT Tabitha Klingensmith, one of the Public Affairs Officers on board the Truman. She was to be my sponsor while there-- and not only was also a combination of supervisor, guide, event planner, organizer, and agent throughout my stay-- and proved to be invaluable in the successful completion of my art mission. I must say, without her skills in logistics and networking, I would never have been able to fulfill my mission as much as did, which will be evident in future posts on the experience.

I was shown my quarters, given a tour of certain parts of the ship, and within an hour of being on board, I was back on the deck, being led by the Safety Officer amongst the "controlled chaos" that is Flight Deck Operations on a super carrier, taking photographs of the crews at work, and the aircraft and pilots catapulting off the ship!

It was a great start to what would prove to be a very fruitful visit.