model making and the queen of the night

We're finally getting our blue sky back but it's still hot and dry with temps in the high 90˚s. One thing about this dry weather is we have had no mosquitos to speak of so that's something at least.

My days are still basically the same...watering in the mornings and evenings, working in the studio, hiding from the heat streaming, fixing dinner my two nights, volunteering on Thursdays, sometimes yoga.

Here's the two new little corals.

Now I'm ready to compose them all in some sort of cohesive little reef. Either that or work on the feet and I still need to trim down the wax slab for the top so that it fits the bottom. Right now it's a little longer and wider which I did on purpose as it's easier to trim down than build up but I might keep it that way.

So today I arranged 6 compositions with the coral and crab. Turns out I don't have enough room for all 7 corals and the crab. I can use 5 corals and the crab or 6 corals. I put aside the one from the reproduction mold and these are the arrangements (feedback welcome)...

I'll probably play around with them a little more before I decide, before I permanently attach them to a base (and each other) for making the mold. I have to visualize what the steamed out mold is going to look like, make sure I have easy access to all the forms when I'm ready to fill the mold with glass frit.

Also today I worked out my concept for the feet. It's still very rough, still tweaking it, but I think this is it.

Three or four more days and maybe I'll be done with all the pieces and ready to set them up for the mold making process.

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Last week I noticed that the night blooming cereus had 20 buds developing, a few days later 4 had turned yellow and fallen off. Tuesday night two of the remaining 16 bloomed and I missed them. Wednesday night I set a timer for 10 PM and went out to look and they were just opening. I locked up and went to bed. I woke up at 2:30, cause that's just what I do, and laid there for half an hour trying to convince myself that I wanted to get up, throw on a shift, and go out and look. At 3 AM I had to get up to pee so since I was already up and out of bed, that's what I did. I didn't get the flashlight, just aimed my phone camera in the dark and depended on the flash. The flash tends to wash out the flowers but I did get a few tolerable pictures. Fourteen flowers open at once the air smelled provocative, sweet and lemony.

I have other flower pictures but they'll have to wait.