a look back at the christmas just past - part 4

OK, one last x-mas update then into the new year!

My family plays a Gift Exchange Game every year. It's the one where everyone gets a number and can take a present from the pile or steal a gift from someone else. The price limit is $20 but I think some people cheat. Bottles of alcohol do VERY well in this game!

Bucking corporate conventionality and not wanting to aid in the alcoholism of my young nephews and nieces, I went off to the thrift store to see what I could find.

Pleased with my previous Wayne-White-Rip-Off-Effort (see part 3 in this series), when I found a print featuring a wild seascape, I decided to do up another rip-off for the family game.

This time I painted the old nautical saying "Huzzah".

It went over pretty well and it even got stolen a few a times. My brother ended up with it.

This is the only picture I got - right after I finished painting it.

The other thing I put in the game was a Bossons head of a "Sea Captain". They are collectible but this one was beat up and I found it at the thrift store. It is actually a likeness of Norman Rockwell!!!

These creepy Bossons heads go way back in my family's history so I thought people might enjoy the nostalgia of it... but I was the only one apparently... I picked my own gift (tacky, I know) and no one ever stole it from me... but I'm happy because this is the kind of junk I enjoy...

He had some scuffs and dings but I patched him up real good.

I also found another bowling pin the same day... so now I have two of each. Merry Christmas to me!

Collections, they just happen to me... I can't help it.

So the Life-Boat-Man and the Sea-Captain now hang in the most water-related room of the house, the bathroom. I enjoy greeting Norman Rockwell every morning but my husband is a bit creeped out because Norm's sort of looking right at his wang...

...and on that note, a merry christmas to all and to this subject, good night!

a look back at the christmas just past - part 3

Christmas Crafting, a.k.a. my Wayne White Rip Off

El Husbandino has been doing a lot of traveling and job-interviewing of late and the other day he called from a faraway land to request a "pep talk". It was then that I realized I am kind of horrible at pep-talking. He is really great at it and has pepped me up many times over the years so I felt sad I couldn't reciprocate.

That's what inspired this little project...

I came up with the idea of trying to make a "motivational poster" for Husband as a permanent pep-talk he can hang on the wall - since I'm not very good at the verbal sort.

I found the paint-by-number at a thrift-store and I've always wanted to do the thing where you paint on old paintings. Even though it's been done to death, I still like the idea.

I'm a fan of Wayne White and his typographic paintings and I decided to basically rip off his style since this was just something that would be staying in the house and I will never start doing this as art to sell and frankly I'm not creative enough to come up with my own thing.

...but I was happy with my choice of old painting and cheesy phrase and the outcome of the project so I decided to show it on this blog that hardly anyone reads...

But credit where credit is due, I DID NOT COME UP WITH THE IDEA OF PAINTING TEXT ON AN OLD PAINTING!!

My main inspirations were Wayne White and Whilhelm Staehle but umpteen other artists have also done the "painting on old paintings thing"... I'm most attracted to these two because they use text so well.

There.

Moving on, here's what I did:

I tried painting first but I don't have oil paint and acrylic over old oil really doesn't really work.

Also, the paint-by-number was really warped so painting neat, straight lines was really hard.

Later I found an old tv-dinner-table out by a local dumpster and scavenged the top of it to make a hard base for the painting. I nailed the painting on to the board. This made things much easier to work with... plus I think the nails make it look "rustic"...

Sketching:

When my painting skills failed, I decided to screen print using the freezer paper method... which meant cutting everything out and limited detail (hence the choice of very blocky letters) (I was also up against a Christmas-day-deadline)...

The screen wasn't wide enough so I had to add the N and Ss later...

I eventually got all the letters screened on there. Because the printing ink was also acrylic, the letters all crackled a bit but again, I think it adds to the rustic feel of the thing. I sprayed it with fixative to hold it in place.

Next, I got our super-cool-building-super, Bill, to take his table saw to it and cut down the edges.

And voila!

That Y is a bit wonky and the Ss are too big but "oh well"... overall, I'm happy with it.

By the way, I wasn't trying to belittle mountains and all their glory in any way! haha!

I chose the phrase because the picture had mountains in it and my husband really IS very good at tackling big projects and making them look easy... like it's no big deal, no drama. He does the exact opposite of making molehills into mountains.

Side view:

Oh! and without even asking, Super-Bill went and made a nice little hanging hole too! He really is a swell guy!

In-situ... until Husband figures out where to hang it:

a look back at the christmas just past - part 2

The ginger-bread challenge:

A friend hosted a ginger-bread-building competition. There was no theme, you could do whatever you wanted. Somehow we (me and husband) settled on the age-old wonder of Freemasonry for our theme. Pyramids are surprisingly hard to construct out of gingerbread by the way! Next time I need to build a GB pyramid (which will probably be never) I will build an up-side-down "form" for it to harden up in... instead of doing it ground-up as I did (also, there is nothing inside of this holding it up, which was silly).

Gingerbread-Freemasons holding Masonic symbols:

And then another day I made some chocolate cookies that looked so much like poop but ended up tasting very good indeed!

a look back at the christmas just past - part 1

we decked this wall instead of a hall...

... and hung our homemade garlands and stockings with care on another wall, for lack of a mantle...

... and I fashioned this stole out of the fur of an old coat-collar to feel festive and sassy and fashion-forward all at once (or is fur fashion-backward?!? I just know all the kids are wearing it on the blogs I stalk...)

last life drawing session (back in january)

A few excerpts from last night's life-drawing session (the last before the holidays).

Yesterday I felt like everything was wrong with my drawing but today I feel a bit better about it... I'm glad I'm at least trying...

I forget whether this was a one or two minute gesture.

Tried to draw with some weird charcoal pencil I had in my stash of supplies. I think this was 25 minutes. I like the floaty shape.

The people next to me said it looked like Stephen Harper (the model did NOT look like Stephen Harper - except for maybe his hair...) which makes me laugh when I look at it now.

This was a 30 minutes section of a 50 minute pose (I ditched the first attempt). I managed to avoid excessively-small-head-syndrome with this one! (You're probably wondering if his head was extremely large in real life to allow me to draw it normal-sized... well, it was "large-ish" but not freakishly so.)

A nice thing about living in a city with a university Fine Arts program is that you find lots of cool art books at the thrift store! I found a book of Paul Davies' Portraits the other day. A few of them stopped me in my tracks.

I really like this one. It's a Russian poet whose name I didn't recognize and can't remember off the top pf my head. The photo doesn't do it justice.

december already?

It seems like we move every other year (still in the unsettled-post-grad stage of life... which may prove to be permanent) and every time we move, it's on January 1st. Luckily, this is NOT a moving year so I can do fun December things like building gingerbread creations and practicing M&M segregation while I'm at it.

I can not unveil the gingerbread thing just yet...

Moving on...

I've become a bit embarrassed at my posting of thrift-store finds because by now you must be wondering how much space I could possibly have left in my apartment (answer: not much) and also because I've had a line in my head for a few weeks now about "mistaking shopping for creativity" (from Douglas Coupland's Massey Lectures on CBC awhile back).

I think I make that mistake a lot. Thrift-store shopping gives me a little high - like I've just gone out and done some hunting-n-gathering. I think it feels more "creative" than shopping at the mall because you have to be able to see the potential in a object... and then of course there's a certain self-righteousness involved.

... but ultimately, it's time spent shopping when I should be working/practicing.

My thrift-shopping time usually happens when I'm feeling too lazy or scared to get down to the job of making art.

That said, here are a few totally awesome recent scores:

A cool, old easel.

I've wanted an easel for a long time and this one is... well... cool and old.

And how could I resist these puppy-dog eyes? Have I ever mentioned that almost every piece of ceramic I'm attracted to turns out to be Japanese? True story.

A bowling-trophy-lamp to go with my bowling pin. It's just the thing I never knew I needed!

Lastly, after all that shopping I made something.

I've wanted a bedside-shelf for awhile (to clean up the bedside pile o' junk on the floor) but I needed something with very particular dimensions and shape. I finally had some time to make the right thing.

I'm proud of it not because I think it's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship but because it's totally good enough to live with aesthetically, it does precisely what I need it to do, and I made it for free with junk wood, odds-n-ends, and the few tools I have in my possession (a saw and a cordless drill).

I know it looks crude but it's pretty good given the resources used. I'm feeling pretty smug and clever about it actually... but I'm still excited for the days when I'm old and rich and have a shop full of proper tools for making nicer things.

Anyway, making this made me feel all resourceful and junk.