Studio Work

Since I finished my last block, time to start something new.  Next up is either my next hospital block, or something from my boardwalk series, but either way, it means doing something on a piece of lauan, and that means surfacing it with some kind of wood filler.  I cut blocks of lauan a few weeks ago, and have been clamping them down on my table ever since, to try to get the wood more flat.  I also bought a tube of wood filler, which has been sitting in a drawer in my Studio ever since.   Today was the day to see what I could do with all this.

The blocks for my boardwalk prints are a little larger, and currently a little flatter, so I decided to start with  one of those, and my new tube of filler.  Unfortunately, that tube needed to be punctured before anything would come out.  I tried first with a steel push pin I had in that same drawer, but the holes were small, and not much came out.  Looking more through that drawer, I found some cheap woodcut tools and something like an awl.  Don't know how it would be used for woodcutting, but if did make a better puncture in the tube.  I borrowed a plastic putty knife from Molly, and started to process of smearing a very thin layer of wood filler on the block.  (see below)

Squeezing the tube was not easy, but eventually I finished the block.  I had a few sheets of sandpaper in the drawer and selected the finest grit I had, some 220.  It would do.  I sanded the block down, resulting in a very smooth much lighter surface, ideal for drawing.  If I ever buy more wood filler, I will get a tub, not a tube.

As I was doing all this, I remembered that I used to occasionally reconstitute old wood filler by adding a little water and stirring it all up.  All the wood filler I had (in the back of my car) was completely dried up, but maybe I could get it back into shape.  So I removed a few dried chunks from the pail I had, added the stuff scraped off the pail lid (where I used to mix the stuff), added some water, and let it do what it would.  After I finished the first block with the new tube stuff, I decided to try my reconstituted wood filler on another piece of wood, in this case what I had for the hospital block.  

There were a few hard crumbs in the remade wood filler, but I was able to surface and sand the second piece of wood with it.  Everything was clamped down again.  Next time I go to the Studio, I'll look at what I have and decide what to do.  However, I do believe I will start drawing one of them, if not both of them.

For music today I went back to the box from storage and selected another long unseen disc.  This was one of my home burned specials, converting three vinyl records to one compact disc.  First up was the whole Ace of Clubs album from Dash Rip Rock.  I think I found it in the dollar pile at Silver Tunes in Belmar, a record store that no longer exists.  An excellent album, one of the best dollars I ever spent.  I'd classify them as basic rock, though the album includes some country, blues, cowpunk, and jangle pop.  This was followed by the 3 song 12 inch EP Red Hot and Ready to Roll by the Dusters.  Raw, bluesy hard rock, and much better than the follow up LP the band put out.  Still more room, so I put on the mini album El Rauncho Grande from the Raunch Hands, I band I first saw at the legendary Maxwell's in Hoboken, a very wild night.  If you know the band, you know what the record sounds like.  So three vinyl records I can't currently listen to, but now on disc.  And good music to work to, as I was doing today.