Friday, April 9, 2010

Companion

Made this sculpture a couple of weeks ago, as a companion piece to my Hyakki Yako. The inspiration for this work actually came from this particular post from one of my favorite blogs, More Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan.


Instead of demons, this piece has Jizo buddhas and children playing under the tree. It's the opposite of Hyakki Yako. I like the idea of Jizo buddha. He is the protector of women, children and travelers (in the physical realm and spiritual realm).

I put a fox here next to the Jizo. Again, playing with the idea of a spiritual guardian.



And here are the two sculptures, side by side, for comparison. I like to expand this idea, of making a group of sculptures that are related to each other, and they interact with each other when they are together.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Hyakki Yako

I'm back to sculpting after taking 3 weeks off from it. This time I'm playing with the idea of Hyakki Yako (the Chinese call it bai gui ye xing: a hundred demons moving in the night), which means pandemonium.

I worked pretty much all day on Saturday. I love how the sculpture looked in the light of the setting sun.

I spent a few more hours on Sunday to finish the sculpture. I think this sculpture took me over 10 hours to complete.

I'm quite proud of my nose. I mean the nose on this sculpture, I think I have improved a lot :)

There are 7 demons hanging out under the tree.


My favorite demon is that happy little guy sitting on the bottom left.


I kind of like this triceratops-inspired demon too.


It was fun coming up with all those ideas for demons. I think I will have to make more demons to accompany this piece.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Work in proress: Memento mori

Going for a memento mori-sort of theme (not quite the traditional notion of memento mori).