Thursday, May 19, 2011

Thar Be Treasures! Part Deux

Waaaay back in the day, just after we bought the house, John was cabling the upstairs for tv and internet, and came across a lamp base behind the knee wall that surrounds the perimeter of the entire upper level. I had the grandiose idea that I would paint the base and attach some sort of awesome lamp shade and it would be an awesome homage to the origins of the house.
I started out by wielding a can of RustOleum Universal Hammered Spray Paint in Silver. It looked alright, though I wasn't omfg in love with it. So I stripped it with paint thinner (and killed off more than a few brain cells in the process. There goes algebra!) (Hah! as if I knew algebra in the first place!) and applied a new coat of Heirloom white. It looked pretty schnazzy, and I was happy with it.
Oh! I forgot to mention that the cord on the base was insanely old and one of the connectors was haphazardly attached, so I decided to rewire it. Simple task, to be sure. Except I kept blowing the breaker. Boo.
Next, I tackled the shade. I wanted something pretty and graphic, but didn't like the options I found online or in stores. I liked this one a lot, but I have a hard time spending $ on something I think I can do myself. So I went out to JC Penny and scored a big old drum shade at 40% off, and then went to Jo-Ann's to pick up some Jacquard Neopaque fabric paint in white, black, and deep red.
For the next forty hours or so (I *so* wish I was exaggerating), I hand painted the red blossom/black branch/white accent pattern on the shade. The paint was quite easy to work with, but I completely underestimated the total area of the shade that would need to be painted. So while the small/intricate pattern seemed easy peasy when I started, by the end it felt boring and tedious.
After the shade was finally finished, I attached it to base, and was pleased enough. I set it on the Frankenstein Table and moved onto the next project. A few weeks later, something fell behind Frankenstein, and rather than pull the ottomans out from underneath it to retrieve the item, I decided to pull the table over. As Frankenstein's are want to do, he lumbered forward and CRASH BAM BOOM, the legs collapsed and everything on top of it toppled off onto the floor. Pirate Lamp died, as did several small marble vases my mom had found for me. DAMN IT. AND I didn't even get a picture of the damned thing before it shattered.
So I spent several months trying to find a suitable replacement base for my magnificent lamp shade. I was determined the thrift it, because my mom and sister are such talented thrifters and certainly *I* would be able to do it! HAH.
As any sad and pathetic person might do, I was at Ikea on my birthday. I snagged a Jonsbo Barby lamp base in a pale pale pink. The only problem is that the base is designed for a Spider/Harp shade, and my shade is a Slip Uno Fitter. A tube of JB weld and wire cutters fixed the problem. And BAM, I had a gorgeous lamp with a magnificent shade.

Click here for more pictures of the new lamp with its beautiful shade :o)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Carving my way Through Hell Part Deux

Dante's Third Circle is reserved for Gluttons, and while I still firmly hold that carvers inhabit his Seventh Circle, I decided to punish/challenge myself and take another stab at carving. The parameters of this project were simple: create a sculpture of the human form and focus on the play of light/darkness.
Realizing how freaking hard it is to carve, I decided to create a mold that would better lend itself to what I envisioned the final product to be. I used an old realtor sign that I bought with the house; it was made of corrugated plastic. I wanted the final sculpture to be able to stand upright, and have smooth top, bottom, and sides, so the corrugated plastic was perfect. I also wanted the bottom of the piece to be thicker than the top of the piece, I built an angle into the bottom of the mold. This is what the mold looks like.
For the sculpture itself, one of my favourite sketches I did when I took figure drawing back in college was of a knee. It's a bit strange, I agree, but I really liked the sketch. And I've always loved that the human form, when truncated and broken up into segments (NOT like the Ice Truck Killer!!!) becomes abstract and almost like a landscape. I did a water colour painting in for my Senior Art Show that demonstrated that (sadly, the painting was destroyed when I "accidentally" left it outside in the elements for a few months. However, before I painted it, I did a colour pastel drawing of it. Here:
Now imagine it's monochromatic black and white watercolour, and you can imagine how it might be mistaken as a landscape).
So I decided to base my sculpture on that figure drawing sketch from so many years ago.
The problem with the sketch was that it wasn't the exact angle I wanted to use. So I needed more reference material. Unfortunately, Googling "kneeling woman profile" made me feel very very pervy. A classmate, who is a Physical Therapist, took pity on me and gave me some nice colour copies of the knee from several of her anatomy/physiology texts, and those helped a lot.
Carving is something that's really difficult to me, because my brain doesn't "see" what needs to be removed in order to get the shape out of the piece. I'm too paranoid that I'll take off more than I mean to, and because plaster is a once-it's-gone-there's-nothing-you-can-do-to-get-it-back medium, I was very very scared of taking too much off. I spent around 15-20 hours working on this piece, and I was quite pleased with the result.
Since I'm not a camera whiz, I had a hard time capturing shadow.
Unfortunately, most people outside of my class thought it was either a tongue or a butt crack (could be a reflection of the type of people I was asking and not necessarily the piece itself), but everyone in the class knew what it was (though I couldn't really tell if they were sincere or if they were humouring me).
When I showed it in class, I brought my own spotlight, and hard them turn off the overhead, so I think the subject matter might've been clearer.
Anyway, I was happy with the piece, and would--if I'm bored/insane enough--like to create several companion pieces. Like of a neck, of a shoulder, of a collar bone.
More can be viewed here.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Charity Begins at Home

I can clearly remember than in Mrs. Burns' Fourth Grade Class, one of the art projects we undertook was making masks related to Idaho History. The FUN activity involved dragging out mothers in on a weekday, Vaseline, and hanging out in the teacher's lounge (SO COOL!!!!!!!!). Our loving months applied plastered gauze strips to our greased up faces and we tried desperately not to hyperventilate as we breathed through straws stuck up our noses. My face mask was AWESOME, and I applied braided gauze strips to it later. A quick paint job, and I had a slamming Sacagawea mask. I'm pretty sure I work that thing around the house far more than was a good idea, and I was REALLY sad when I had to glue it to a project board with a description of Sacagawea's significance in Idaho History.
A few years later, as a Girl Scouts project, I got to make another life-cast mask, and painted this one as Spider-Man. I proudly brought it with me to college, and have it safely packed away in a box of memorabilia (hmmm...wonder if it still fits???).
So, when my sculpture instructor said that one of the final projects in the Beginning class would be to use plastered gauze strips on a piece, I was ecstatic. Really. We had to create three figures, at least six feet tall, interacting with each other and attached to the same base. The kicker was that one of the figures needed wings. Now, my first thought for the piece was horribly inappropriate and dealt with an in flagrante delicto Peeping Tom angel figure and a Beast with Two Backs. There were several religious people in the class, and I thought fo'sho they'd be insulted. And while I thought it would be an amusing piece, it wouldn't be anything I'd want to keep in my house, and could really see doing anything at all with it after the in-class critique.
So instead, I decided to do something with a baby, a beggar, an angel, and a woman--something safe. The challenge of the assignment was to create figures that utilized the concepts of the Golden Ratio. With the four figures, I was able to utilize as many standard options with the Golden Ratio as possible (male, female, child). So the figures were created using tie wire as the frame, and aluminum foil and hot glue to provide bulk. I gave the woman boobs and wider hips, and made the angel figure taller/broader than the other figures. After the figures were foiled, I applied the moistened gauze. I didn't go crazy with clothing, but I gave the woman a dress and the man a shirt. The only special treatment to the handle was the wings.
I think the most fun I had with the project was creating the prim and the park bench. The prim is made in the same manner as the figures (wire frame, foil girth, and plaster covering), and I added flattened out beer caps to made wheels. The bench is made out of FREE paint stirring sticks that I sliced into smaller strips and sanded to remove the HOME DEPOT logo. The slats are attached to a tie wire frame that I wrapped with 28-gauge steel wire; this kept the strips of tie wire together and made the frame look more like wrought iron.
Since the project required a base, I made one out of maple and plywood. I covered it with moss and sand to emulate a park scene. When I designed the figures, I left wire poking out from below their feet so I could drill a hole into the base and insert the wire; it worked out really well, as the figured were pretty darned stationary once they were attached to the base. This is how it turned out:
When I presented the project to the class, I had several talking points. The first was the importance of using a pram instead of an American stroller. I've always wondered if children who rode around in a stroller have a more outwardly world view than children who rode around in a pram (since the stroller babies are pointed out towards the world, and pram babies are pointed towards the mother/care taker).
The idea here was the importance of observing charity in action. Since the baby is in the pram looking at the mother, it sees the mother handing the money to the beggar, and plants the seed for charity in the child. (It's a stretch).
I struggled as to where to place the angel figure because its placement has implications on Good Works versus Virtuous Acts (see, mom! I *did* learn something in Confirmation!). If the angel were behind the woman, one could argue that she was doing Good Work, as if compelled by the angel. With the angel behind the beggar, the act becomes a Virtuous Act.
In the end, I found the piece more meaningful if the angel were behind the beggar. Additionally, it's as if the beggar were being looked after by the angel.
Overall, I'm kind of "meh" about the piece. I think it's rather boring, and I have no idea what I'll do with it. Right now it's sitting in a milk crate in the dining room, collecting dust. I spent around 15 hours working on it, and I think the figures are pretty neat, so I don't have the heart to chuck it. Perhaps I'll post it on Etsy and see if there's anyone out there who wants it. Click here for more (bad) photos.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Carving my way Through Hell

Perhaps the most difficult project I tackled during the Beginning Sculpture class last fall was carving. As I like to tell anyone who will listen (and even those who don't), I am a CREATOR and not a DESTROYER. That is to say, carving is an activity commonly enjoyed by those individuals who occupy the outer ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell.
The assignment sounded simple: carve something out of a solid something else. The instructor provided plaster, and since I had paid a $15 materials fee and plaster was only one of two materials to be provided all semester, I wanted to get my damned money's worth and use some plaster! Plaster, for you lucky uninitiated, starts out as a white powder and hardens once mixed with water. It will take on whatever shape it's poured into (a process called "molding"). I had very little experience with carving, and decided I would create something that was non-representational so it wouldn't have to be recognizable as something else. Using a rectangular box as a mold, I was going to carve out three long, curving tendrils (think, aloe vera leaves) that point up, attached to a square base. After 2.5 weeks of class time (~6 hours a week, so a total of nearly 15 hours), I was no where near done, and the project was due during the next class. So I made three new molds of three different sized plastic food storage bins, and frantically tried to figure out something to carve.
I settled on three stylized birds of different sizes. The littlest is my favourite. Click here for more equally crappy photos of them.
The problem was that when I mixed the plaster and water, I used WAY too much water, and even after it was set, the plaster was too wet to really work with. So I baked the three molds at 250 degrees for something like 5 hours. That dried them out VERY nicely. So nicely, in fact, that the slightest brushing a finger would mar the surface. Which make carving even more difficult, and made preserving them nearly impossible. I tried using a water-soluble varnish on them, and besides turning them yellow, it's flaking off like crazy. I think when the weathers a bit more predictable (and I'm motivated to do so), I'll use a white spray paint on them and hope I can get it thick enough that it'll stick.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Squeezing the Life Out of Weeds Plants

My mom insisted that my two brothers, sister and I took specific projects in 4-H when we were kids. Our first year, we had to take Helping Mom & Dad (a ploy to get us to pitch in more) and Idaho Wildlife (in hopes of fostering naturalist feelings towards our native fauna). The second year, we could take one project of our choosing, and we also had to take a project on native weeds plants. Now, for me, that was torture. By that time, I had spent a summer out in the bean fields, grudgingly weeding (or, as I like to say, Hoe-ing. Yeah, so I can tell people that I was a professional Ho-er by the time I was 11. I get some craaaazy looks, and it amuses me so). I hated weeds and had no appreciation for their non-weedy kin. But I really wanted to take the other project (cooking, I believe), so I took up the flora cause and spent the summer collecting, pressing and preserving the various native and non-native weeds plants of Idaho's Snake River Plain. Yee-haw. (I guess there's some lesson in knowing one's enemy)
Why am I mentioning it? Because one of things we had to do as part of the project was create a weed plant press. And my mom's design was, quite honestly, ingenious, and I don't think I've seen it replicated. And lately, I've had this URGE to squeeze the life-blood out of the weeds plants that litter my landscape. So I decided to recreate my mom's ingenious weed plant press, and take some piccies of the finished product. Because, you know, *someone* might be planning on forcing their kidlets into taking a Flora Preservation/Appreciation project in 4-H or they're trying to foster some young naturalist tendencies in their precocious offspring.
Supplies:
  • Pre-finished Pegboard (~2' x 4' is sufficient) Mine has an enameled finishon one side, bare on the other
  • Long machine screws with round ends. Mine are 3" and 1.5"
  • Matching washers
  • Matching wing nuts
  • Jig or table saw
  • Newspaper or Corrugated cardboard
I didn't bother to take pictures of the process, as I was lazy and didn't think they'd add much (and I made enough mistakes that I would have felt embarrassed to have documented them).
First, I cut the pegboard into two 17" segments (leaving me a good amount left over), giving me two 17" x 24" boards. I cut ~10 off the length of these, making them ~17" x 14". Next, I put wrong-sides together (be sure to do this!!), and lined up the holes. I then used the table saw to cut off the excess. I did the same thing with the two 10" x 17" remnants, and then cut them in half length-wise, so I had two more small presses (I'll give one to my friend who loves wildflowers).
That's all it takes (plus the screws, washers, and wing nuts)--the press is now ready to use. All you have to do is take the screws and one washer per screw, and thread them through the four corners of one of pieces of pegboard. Layer newspaper (or corrugated cardboard; whatever floats your boat), a single layer of weeds plants, then more newspaper, then more weeds plants, etc etc. After a reasonable number of layers, add the matching piece of pegboard and slide it over the screws. Add the second washer and screw it down using the wing nuts. Et voilĂ ! An easy to use, easy to assemble weed plant press. For the larger press, I added a second set of screws/washers/wing nuts to the center of the lengthwise edge on each side, just to give it a bit more pressing power. The holes of the pegboard allow enough air to penetrate through the newspaper to adequately dry the weeds plants. It might not be as fancy-schmancy as some retail plant presses, but it works well for me!
I bought the 2' x 4' sheet of pegboard from Home Depot for $6.15. The screws, washers, and wing nuts cost $6.66 (freaked out the cashier!). So for around $14, I have three rather nice, quite kick-assery weed plant presses. Awesome.
Click for more pictures, although they're just different shots of the same thing :o)
And, for good measure, a picture of Albert.