Fossils of the Future - FINISHED!

The last time you lot saw my fossil it looked like this:



We only had this week to finish everything which was plenty of time I thought as I was well ahead and just needed to do a little more detailing on everything and then do the text at the top.

The best laid plans and all that, however, were suddenly ruined by the onset of the most horrific headcold which took root at the beginning of the week and was so bad on Tuesday that I had to miss college, thus, leaving me with a lot more work to catch up with than I'd originally anticipated!

 First things first, I painted the actual fossilised parts a very dark brown-black so that it'd blend in with everyone else's work. I intended to go over it at the end with a light coat of PVA to give it a very slight shine but I ended up not having enough time.
The main surface wasn't right so I went over it a few times with a series of different paints so it'd lose the rust colour which worked well on the buried artefacts but not on the actual dirt stuff! I added in some plaster dust and fine sand as well to vary the texture even more. I may have gone a little OTT with the dirty washes on the surrounding stone as everyone else's stuff was pretty plain but meh, I like it. :P





































I missed all of Tuesday so the following day was insanely important as we now only had the afternoon to finish the lot! This was made even more of a rush as we spent the morning listening to a talk about the only course in the UK to offer a degree in this field of study. -link- It was very interesting and definitely something to think about for the future. (even though it's insanely expensive and is way down south so I'd have to leave home and that's something I'm absolutely terrified of doing!)

Anyway, so yes, that rather stymied the idea of using the morning to catch up and as I was still horrendously choked up with the cold, I found myself using it as an excuse constantly.

tumblr gifs are ALWAYS appropriate. :P

'Could someone pass me that paint over please?'
 
'Can't you reach it yourself?'

 'aksdgjsaiudhgiudfghafduihg I've got a COLD!'




 Yes, well ANYWAY, the next thing to accomplish was the text at the top of the panel. We'd all decided on a phrase/statementy thing and had each been allocated words. The original idea was to each come up with a subtitle that related to your word/s and have it at the bottom so each panel could work as a standalone piece as well as part of a bigger installation but they'd obviously run out of time as only a couple of people had done so by Wednesday.

My words were 'First On' (not the easiest thing to come up with a subtitle for anyway) and I had yet to settle on a font! After much muddling, I finally came up with this.

I really love that 'R'.

Once designed, it was traced (onto tracing paper funnily enough) and then transferred onto the piece by gently scoring into the foam with a scalpel. I overdid it a couple of times - partly because I'd never done it before and well, I was in a rush, I'll admit it.

Probably the most accurate photo in terms of colour correctness.

After a tense moment when I unstuck the paper expecting loads of sections I'd missed out I was relived to see this instead:

However, if I thought the worst was over I was very sadly mistaken. We were to carve out the letters like they were stone, with the cuts done at a 45° angle like this.
 
<--------

Alas, blue foam is a lot easier to cut than real stone and as a result my first few letters are pretty rubbish looking.



Everyone else's was really neat but then, they'd had Tuesday. :P

We laid them all out (mine still needing the letters painted) and it wasn't until then that we noticed the monumental communications breakdown.



It should have read -

DRAWN BY WASTE, CREATURES DESCENDED. FEEDING FIRST ON
LANDFILL AND THEN ON HUMAN LIFE, HERE LIE FOSSILISED 

REMAINS OF THE LOST CIVILIZATION FROM THE 21ST CENTURY

However, it had somehow been changed at some point and no one had noticed. XD

While everyone else started to get the backing panel sorted out, I rushed off to fill in my text - literally finishing it just as everything was being stuck down - talk about 11th hour! XD

I love this photo solely because it looks like John has an eyepatch. XD

So yes, it's finished! If I could do it again there are a few things I'd do differently in terms of finishwork and whatnot but I can't really complain - we got a LOT done in six days. :D


EG out!