Element: 3 Years of Fill-ups

I've now had the Element almost 3 years so I decided to it was time to analyze all the fill-up data I've collected over the years. Every time I get gas I fill the tank, then I record the date, odometer, volume of gas, and amount spent.

So I just took all this information and plug it into a trusty spread sheet and generated some cool graphs and some useless one.

The overall data:
Total Spent on Gas: $2774.37
Total Litres purchased: 3332.845L
Average price of Gas: 83.24 Cents/L
Average Fuel Economy: 10.45 L/100km
Average Fuel Economy: 22.50 Miles/Gallon

Now for some pretty graphs. The first one is the odometer reading over time. Obviously this one will always go up. What's interesting is that the amount of driving I do is fairly constant as shown by the slope of the graph, except for 2 humps. These hump just happen to be the times I drove to Brickfest in Washington D.C.

The next graph is fuel economy. This one varies a lot. This is mostly do to driving habits. After some fill-up I'll do lots of highway driving, and after others it will be more city. But I do find it interesting that there appears to be an annual cycle forming. Overall fuel economy appears to be better through the summer and into the fall, the through the winter and spring.


This graph is the price of gas over time. It has nothing to do with my vehicle other then you can see how bad the price of gas was at the end of last summer.


No we get into some silly graphs, like how much gas I put in per fill up. Hmm, just over 2oo km is the minimum, I wonder why that is. I seem to do a lot of driving to somewhere 200km away, fill-up, then turn around and come back.


Finally another mostly useless graph. This one shows the average number of kilometres I travel per day for each fill up. The two large spikes are the trips to Brickfest. The next size spikes are most likely quick turnaround trips to that place 200km away.

Sculpture: Guay Head

(November 2006)
My previous post about Guay was a lead in to this one. Ever since I met Guay I've always wanted to sculpt her head.

When she first came to the class to model she had this wonderful chaotic hair style. The only thing I can think of close to it is Andy Warhol's hair. Short and sticking out all over. It looked awesome. But I was casting at the other end of the class, so I could only think about how cool it would be to sculpt her.

Then the next time she was in she was completely bald. Which was great because it was the first time I could actually see the structure of the scull on a models head. My previous two head sculptures do have some problems with proportion on the back of the head.

Unfortunately the second time she was in I was also working on casting.

Finally this year I get my chance. She had a small tuft of hair above her forehead so she's effectively bald. Ideal for me, but she was the first model of the term, and the teacher likes to do several quick, half class poses for the first two classes, then one full class pose. Three classes being the longest we get with a single model. Not ideal.

I wanted to do this piece so badly though. I haven't work so hard and so fast on something like this in a long time. It was great. I had one three hour class to get as much done as I possibly could. And I was absolutely amazed at how far I got.

The pictures here are of the piece just before I started casting. I did three weeks of clean up work in class, and I actually brought this one home and worked on it for another 5 hours.

But what I got done in the one class was enough to base all the rest of the work on. Which was great. It showed that I'm getting to a point where I can worked quickly from the model and get enough down to be able to finish it from memory.

But, but you say, the sculpture has hair, and you said she was bald. Yes well, I like to do hair. One of the funnest things is coming up with a hair style.

Although I like this hair very much, it wasn't my first choice. I had a style in mind that was reminiscent of the hair style Guay had the first time I saw her. Unfortunately it was going to be too time consuming to produce. This year I am only able to make the fall session of classes. This means I must get to at least the completed mold stage, or the piece is lost.

Last week I started molding. There are two weeks left. It shouldn't be a problem getting the mold done now. There is some question as to whether I can get the clay out. But that's not a serious problem. It just means it will be very heavy to take home, and I'm going to have quite a mess in my bath.

When will I get it cast? Probably fall 2007. When will it be finished? Probably spring 2008.

Sculpture: Guay Seated

(October 2006)
All the models that have posed on the Sculpture class I take are awesome. It's hard work holding the same position for 3 hours and then return a week later and take the exact same pose for another 3 hours.

If all the models are the best, Guay is the best of the best. She is also in high demand so we rarely get here. In fact this is the first time I actually go to sculpt from her. The previous few times she was in I was stuck down at the other end making a mold.

Not only is she curved to fit a beautiful sculpture æsthetic she takes poses that are hard to hold. Usually involving twisting or arching the torso.

In the first two classes of a session we tend to do quick sketches rather then multi week posses. This is a sculpture that I did of Guay in an hour and a half. I'm very please with how much I managed to get done in that short amount of time.

Brains!