Meanwhile, The Nautilus

My glass class at the FIA continues. This picture is AGES old (from the first day, I think, back in the first week of January). The board (just 3/8" wood attached to a 1" x 1" frame with knots and other uneven bits wood puttied and then covered with primer) is 3' by 4' and so weighed about 4 pounds naked. I wanted to do something rather abstract, but not completely detached from reality. I have always like patterns on shells, in particular nautilus shells, and so thought a massive nautilus would be a cool thing. I happened to have this piece of wood and so used it and, since I wanted to have it be very close up I didn't worry too much about the image ending up assymetrical. Now that I am farther along, I am worried and wonder if I should have done it on a 4' by 4' board. Well, too late now. Here you can see a few of the legs (arms? appendages? not sure) at the bottom and the start of the eye. I had it in my head that nautilus eyes (cephalopods and relatives of squids and octopi, apparently) were simply big, black circles, but they are actually quite complicated and beautiful.

Here is the pupil up close and personal. I intend to add a few more legs/arms/things in a while, but just got sick of doing them and not feeling like I was getting anywhere with this guy. By now I have the eye done, a horn/beak sort of thing done (not sure what that is, but will find out) and have started on the shell. If I remember to bring my camera to class next week, I'll get an updated picture then.
I am very peeved that, because I was so rushed the first week of class (my semester has started that week, too, and I was already desperately behind and disorganized) that I didn't have time to print up a picture of a nautilus to take to class to use as a basis for a quick sketch. Going by memory, I plotted out what I wanted to create. Then, a week later, I did get to looking at photos of the real things* and I was really cheesed to find that I had inverted the things in a really stupid way. I had the legs coming out of the main opening of the shell, and then had the main curve going up the right, over the top at the left, and then down and around. WRONG! Of course, they fact that the legs aren't really blue and green doesn't bother me at all. I immediately remembered Gary Larson (The Far Side) writing in some preface or another, that he was really annoyed with himself for drawing bananas growing down on a banana tree, when in fact they should grow upwards. The fact that he draws cows standing up, talking and wearing horn rimmed glasses, is entirely tolerable. There's a rich philosophical analysis waiting to be created here that will explain the rules of these things.

*My now favorite nautilus is the nautilus macrophalus, otherwise known as the "bellybutton nautilus". They are cute as buttons!