Fine Art Froguery

Frogue Magazine has named its Best Dressed Amphibians of 2022 These resplendent critters will make their debut in September at the North Carolina Botanical Garden at the Sculpture in the Garden show. .In this post, I will show how I make my Frogues from galvanized steel flashing sheets. First, I make a paper template of the frogue shape and mark it in the flat metal sheet.

The metal shapes are cut out with chicken boning scissors.

Using chasing and repose techniques, the flat shape is made into a 3D form.

I cut a piece if wood to fit inside the frogue belly.

The wood piece is epoxy glued into the belly.

Glass eyeballs are glewed in the head and a metal top of head is added.

The bottom of the frogue is painted with black exterior house paint.

The top surface of the frog is painted using a pointallism technoque. this allows the shiny metal to show, giving a sense of light and movement.

In this series, I have used primary, secondary colors and black and white exterior house paint.

Come to the Botanical Garden and select your favorite Frogue. Forrest

A Celebration of Fearrington's Donkeys

 Years ago, Mary Alice came to Fearrington to protect our young Belted Galloway cattle from predators. She had a spunky boy named Jasper in 2007. Later on she had a lovely girl, Charlotte/

MaryAlice and Jasper
Acrylic painting

 

Fearrington artist Forrest Greenslade celebrated Jasper's arrival with an acrylic painting and of Charlotte with a watercolor. 

Mary Alice and Charlotte
Watercolor painting

 

Forrest created a clay makette of Jasper and his mom as the model for a steel and concrete sculpture.

Polymer clay model

The sculpture of Jasper and Mary Alice lived in the Forrest Dweller Sculpture Garden at the Greenslade home in Fearrington's "Historic District" for several years. 

Steel and concrete sculpture

The Greenslade garden intersects with Fearrington's Creekwood trail, At the end of the trail is a lovely pond. Jason Welsch, who is one of the "lightbrigatde" of volunteers who maintain our trails, asked Forrest for a sculpture to adorn a bench that had been donated to sit by the pond. With some modifications, Jason and Forrest installed  Jasper and Mary Alice on the bench.

Jason installing sculpture

Forrest, Jasper and Mary Alice

Take a walk on the lovely Creekwood Trail and enjoy the tranquility of the "Beaver Pond" with Jasper and Mary Alice.

Photo by Jim Fink