Here's what I've been complaining about working on the last few weeks. Done. Finally. This took way longer than tiling the front porch with slate. The front porch was 54 sq ft, this back one is 96.... but it took far more than twice the amount of time/effort/materials. Luckily, it's done. Just before winter. wonderful. Keep your fingers crossed that the workmanship is solid enough to withstand the freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw that is Wisconsin winter.... I guess my new project next spring might be "Learn how to repair tile flooring" which isn't necessarily a bad skill to have...

I think I need to arrange a porch-warming party in the next month or so.... perhaps with some grilled food and a bonfire... hmmmm....

I promised my neighbor I'd restore his frontdoor Buddha back to his earlier gloriousness. Turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.

in the pipeline....

Here's what you'll see in the next few weeks:

1. a three panel painting. Total size = 8' wide x 3' tall
   (I'm still working on making the frames and stretching the canvas)


2. a lino-print for a print exchange in California (I'm still..... ahhh.... remembering how to cut linoleum. yeeeouch.)


3. some Latvian-inspired metal work


4. some more sketches from work
   (need to remember to bring work notebooks home for the evening)


5. Eventually some more lightswitch plates, too.
   (It's about that "that time"... though I have yet to signup for any holiday fairs... I am procrastinating. a LOT.)

These two paintings need your help...

There's something missing from both of them and I've had no luck figuring out what it is... I'm sure I could just sit down with paint and 'doodle' but there's a good chance that if I do that I'll end up massively changing the 'feel' or the 'look' of the painting to the point where it won't be recognizable as what I'm showing here right now... thoughts? ideas? suggestions?

fleece blanket

Would you believe that I got a blister from where my fingers were rubbing up against the canvas I was working on top of while tying all those knots? ouch. Next time I'm picking a better surface to work on.

Rooster - mixed media

..... been playing around with watercolors, black ink, and oil pastels.... true to form i think that every possible color ended up in this one, too.....This was made by splashing colors on paper and then coming back a day or a week later to see what might have formed by those splashes. Then I took other art supplies (pens, markers, oil pastels) to define what *I* saw in a way that other people can see it too.... i never know what will come out of this, which is part of the fun! For example, notice that there's a little orange fish in the middle of the air...

Glass ornaments ..... part 3 of 3

ROUND ones:

Glass ornaments .... part 2 of 3

Odd-shaped:

Glass ornaments .... 1 of 3

Long ones:

Marbles!

Took a class a couple of weeks ago....

Spiral cat-eye marble


A vortex marble!


and.... two broken marbles.... here's one of them anyway:


I'll post the other broken one later tonight, I hope. I should be able to start making these at home on my own soon. I just borrowed a small kiln from my parents and can't wait to get started!

inky sketches

Made while listening/participating in meetings @ work....

Food as art?

Some of us may have gotten a little over-enthusiastic while picking strawberries last week... what you see here is almost 9 lbs of strawberries being washed... which were later turned in to:
- Straw-blu-barb streusel
- Strawberry meringues
- Strawberry gelato
- Strawberry salad
- Straweberry-papaya shakes
- Frozen strawberry yogurt




...and we still have a BIG bowl left of them for eating fresh.... unfortunately no one at my house wants to look at strawberries any more at the moment....

more tie dye....

More tie dye from last week.... there are still a few other things I haven't photographed yet.... but I think I am moving on to other stuff :)

Food as art

Here's what we did on Sunday:







we made (braided) a bazillion Choereg (Armenian Easter Bread).
They turned out really neat!
(and tasty, too!)

Tie Dye folding chair!

After much strenuous re-stretching of the silly canvas (never put these things in the dryer. never.) we have two fully functioning folding chairs again :) and instead of a before and after shot, you get to see both at once. I'm not disassembling and re-assembling these chairs ever again if I can avoid it. (but if I ever do, the white one may get tie dyed, too!)

7 random things

Since I was tagged and I feel like sitting downstairs for a bit... I will fill out the request, but with the standard L-edits

The Rules:
• Start with 7 random facts/habits about yourself
• People who are tagged have to write their 7 things on their blog
• Then choose another 7 people to get tagged and list their names
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment to tell them they have been tagged


1. In general I find that at any given time I have no fewer than 5 projects in some form of not-finished.
2. I have heard people refer to those as UFOs... Unfinshed Objects.. so apparently my house has UFOs in it.
3. The UFOs are usually in vastly different mediums. (in other words, when I say 5 projects, I don't mean I am knitting 5 scarves or painting 5 paintings at a time)
4. My favorite art materials are.... metal, glass, cement and paint. In roughly that order.
5. Even though paint ranked as #4 in that list... I have oil paints that I am a little afraid of trying. Something about needing strong chemicals to clean your brushes/fingers and the paint not drying for ages.... it also brings to mind images of some cool painting marred by stupid pets while I'm not home.
6. I tried batiking for the first time ever today. let me tell you. it's a SLOOOOOW process.
7. my hands were dyed blue-green for most of friday and saturday but I remembered to wear gloves when batiking today.... so except for a little dye around all of my fingernails, we're pretty back to normal in this house :)

Before:


After:


This was made at the same time as the tiled bench... but this piece is not (yet) having the same issues as the bench in the previous post. I *think* that that is because this is *not* a curved surface.... maybe.

A tiled bench

The bench pre-tiles....


The tiles on the counter....


Tiles are attached w/ thin-set...


The next day is grout...


After cleaning off the grout...


unfortunately.... the bench is curved and that is leading to structural integrity issues... I just got an update today, and I hear that the grout is cracking and there's at least 1 loose tile :(

Latvian Easter Eggs

LATVIAN EASTER EGGS

Start with raw eggs, onion skins, various vaguely edible things to put in along w/ the eggs (these are not needed if all you want is to make them brown), and old nylons/tights/pantyhose. Wrap eggs with onion skins and other misc things (pasta, rice, grass, tapioca, etc...). Tie off the nylon/casing inbetween each egg to keep all the stuff pressed up against the egg. Wherever that stuff is pressing will be less accessible to the dye coming from the onion skins, which will give your eggs a wide range of color, going from pale yellows all the way into a deep deep brown and sometimes you'll even get greens & purples, too!



Boil eggs ~30 minutes... Cool eggs and cut the casing open.



Admire the eggs... each one is different!





We did regular eggs, too!

New screen door!

BEFORE:

(picture missing - I am looking for it)

I can't find a picture w/ my old (beat up, aluminum) door... but here's what my door looked like at the height of my DIY misery.... notice there are multiple layers of house I had to take off in order to get this to work...



AFTER!


...is very nice - no?