I put together this short series of clips highlighting the progression of layers in the last piece I made. It's far from anything spectacular and I need to focus on better image quality next time, but for now I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice for me to be able to see how things came together, because I usually manage to erase that part from my head by the time I'm finished with it. I'm hoping to make a bunch of these to stream during my next art opening.
I'm pushing for 4 art shows over the next year. One solo, one with a friend who recently started printmaking, one group and one in....gulp...Minneapolis|St. Paul. Of course, more would be fun, but I think 4 is a decent number considering I'll still be working and doing the firefighting thing and hopefully going to school during that time.
If you happen to be an artist in Madison or Minneapolis and you somehow strolled across this post, feel free to shoot me an email. I haven't researched my group show too much and I'd love to hear from groups looking for more people, and I'm also looking for a good venue in Minnesota.
Okay, well that's all. Talk soon.
It's been a frustrating couple of days. Lots and lots of hours in my project lodge of a garage. At least I prepped my mood with the expectation that the jigsaw thing wasn't going to go so well. Made it a little easier when it, predictably, did not go so well. Didn't really anticipate spilling half a quart of watermelon-pink latex paint on the garage floor. Maybe it was less. I don't know.
Wasn't too terribly excited when I realized that I had to gouge out a loose knot of wood and fill it and sand it, three separate times, even after I had already painted, with wood filler. We won't talk about that. And of course there was the touch-up job with the paint that was somehow half a shade off from the original color. I noticed that part a couple hours after I jotted a few strokes on the surface.
Burnt out light bulbs at 9:00 p.m. always suck, but not as much as the light bulb that burns out 3 seconds after you screw it in. What a charmer. And to think I was all proud of myself for taking all the appropriate measures...in their proper order...to change the light bulb before I went and rifled through the cabinets for it. You know- just little stuff. Moved a few cinder blocks so I could move a couple tables. Had to unplug some things from the outlet that's behind some other things. Walked into the jigsaw blade that I had just taken off the table and set on the ground when I was going to move everything. I was wearing sandals. Went the the backyard in the dark to get the ladder. Fortunately, nothing bad happened during my blind jaunt around to the back of the house. Set the ladder up and trekked to the top [okay, so it's like 4 rungs] and opened the light fixture only to have half a pound of dead bugs scatter all across the fresh paint. It was the piece with the gouge I had to fill 3 times. That thing is cursed by now.
Screwed in the new bulb, smiled that SOMETHING finally worked, began to crawl down the ladder and jumped half a mile high because of the loud pop of the new bulb dying. Ugh. UGH. UGH. I'm surprised that none of my knuckles are broken or bleeding yet. Punching something crossed my mind half a dozen times. It's not frequent that it does...but seriously. The last couple days have sucked, mega style.
Joe came out at some point and asked how it was going. It took a lot of energy for me to keep myself from turning into the sister of Incredible Hulk and not seem like I was entirely fed up. And it took even more energy to erase the thought that I had just wasted so. much. time. when I'm only 25 days out and I don't have many hours away from other commitments during that period. It's okay, though.
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I'm happy to say that I have finally made some headway [it's the next morning now...] and I think I may be able to crank out 3 pieces today. It's that whole cut/sand/prime/paint thing that takes so dang long. Especially when I mess things up. But, like I said- I did move forward last night by a small amount.
And that small amount was that I got my beetle carved and printed! It was the first thing that went right all day yesterday...at like 6:30 p.m. And to think that I started my day at 6:30 a.m. The entire time I was carving I kept thinking that it was going to turn out horribly, but when I peeled the inked block away from the paper during the first test print, I pretty much jumped with glee. If I could do cartwheels I would have. And then I went inside to eat chicken apple curry for dinner and try to gather some more electricity for round 3. I went back out an hour later and printed with my new beetle. This morning I went out and got a few more things ready for printing and then cut and glued some scraps.
So I made a deal with myself- if I can finish 3 pieces today, I might drive to Madison to buy a new camera and some red printing ink. Well, I made that deal 5 hours ago and I think only 2 pieces are going to happen, but that's because I am kind of taking it easy. Tomorrow starts a new chain of work days and I'm really, really not ready for it. But I'm not going to think about that because then the pinchy claws come out and I turn into a crab.
Whew. Okay. End of...whatever you want to consider that. Anyway, what have you been up to lately? Any fun plans for the end of summer/beginning of fall? I don't know about you, but I am so looking forward to boots and scarfs and sweaters and cider and donut holes and hockey. Not football. Hockey. Fall = Hockey.
Welp, as of a couple days ago I can march around and say that my show is next month. I'll most likely hang a right on a side street so I can skip away from the parade and hide.
I've been working a lot over the past week. Office job in the morning, outdoor job in the evening. I'm not good with working a mega ton, but I'm managing. I just need time to sit, think, process, enjoy. Yeah yeah, I'm sure everybody does. But some people are better at working than others and I like when tasks are sorted to people who are good at them, haha. I do appreciate the fact that my day isn't typically a carbon copy of the last...I don't like the thought of 9-5, M-F. I've never had that but I don't think I'd be so good at it.
Anyway. Back to it. I made a list yesterday and sorted my [art show] to-dos for the next month. Of course, I'll probably do exactly opposite of what the list says, but I'll deal with that when it comes up. I'm looking forward to doing the things like "jigsaw 9-12 wooden circles" and "start 3 medium sized pieces: sand and prime". I thought about using a router for the circles but then I stopped and thought about how much of the process of each piece would be gone if I did that. A router would just do the work for me and make all the edges perfect. And I'd have to figure out how to use this router that has a million pieces that my brother scored for me. So jigsaw it is. More on that soon.
One good thing about working lots is that I'll finally be able to get a new camera. For now just pretend it's 2004. It will make the photo look way better.
I'm starting a bigger piece that's going to have lots of beetles on it. I've always been kind of fascinated by those dawdling bugs, all buttoned up in their cute shiny jackets. Something about them just makes me smile. There will probably be 27 beetles in all if I can pull myself to draw 27 beetles. Or I may just block print some and draw others. I haven't decided.
One nice thing about taking a 5 day training course that only covers things I already know [hey, i had to find something good in it to keep me from going out of my mind] is that it's given me a lot of time to think about how I'm going to set things up at the show. I really can't wait until it all comes together. I don't think I would have come up with the same ideas if I had just sat down at home and thought about it, so I think a few coffee shop visits are in order as well. I had stopped going because my computer is all sorts of effed up when it tries to connect to wi-fi, but I don't need a computer for this kind of thing.
Okay, well today is my LAST day of training [for now] and I have to figure out what to wear for casual friday. So rough. I'm locking myself in the house after work to finally spend more than 30 consecutive minutes on show prep. I asked Joe if he could give me some time to just do my thang. Hopefully that means he'll go shopping and buy me things. He won't, but I can still dream.
And hey- thanks for sticking with me lately. To everybody who has emailed and left me sweet comments on here, I can't tell you how much it means to me that you took the time to do that. Seriously.
