Friday, August 14, 2015

A Little House Painting



Over the past week I have used some days off from work to do a little art like activity.  Been painting a house.  A light house.  More specifically, a three foot tall concrete light house.  A typical cast concrete yard decoration, like you'd find at any plant or outdoor store.  There's a front corner of my parents' front yard where nothing grows for very long, the ground choked with tree roots.  After losing some small shrubs to that spot, it was decided to put something there that doesn't grow.  A plain concrete sculpture was purchased earlier in the summer and moved to the back yard and had been there ever since.  I agreed to take care of it if the paint was purchased, so my father looked into the possibilities.  He was able to get some pint cans of black and white enamels, but no small cans of color.  He did end up with an assortment of the little Testor's bottles, which I know best from my days of painting plastic models.

Last week I did the big sections of black and white, making use of the cast shapes and markings, plus their selected color scheme.  I was asked to use red for the front entrance piece, but my father wanted brown for the roof over the door and he wasn't sure how I could do that without brown paint.  I did have the three primaries, and that's all that's needed.  It's something I teach almost every semester, and I'm scheduled to again this fall.  For the base around it, I started with a basic black plus white gray, then used the model paints to make warm and cool versions and arranged them.


The plan is get a small solar charged outdoor light to put in the top.  Once we get that done, it will move back up to the front yard and its place of honor.

Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Before Summer Ends



Today I am 3 weeks away from the start of the fall semester.  Still don't know much for certain.  Expecting one studio class at the university, and down for two at the community college, though that could be less certain.  The latter school has asked us to submit our fall syllabi, which I did on the weekend.  One class is up past the minimum and will likely run, no guarantee that I'll be the teaching it.  The other class had no students when I last checked, so I figure it's likely it gets removed from the schedule soon.  It's a figure class, which I haven't taught in about 8 years, but last year I decided to update the syllabus in case it became an option, so all I had to do was redo the dates for this fall and sent it in. As for the university, no idea which class it will be yet, but I've taught both options before, so it will just be syllabus update.

So with nothing more to be done toward classes, I decided to use a rare day off from work to think about future prints.  I'm putting the supermarket series on hold right now during my supermarket employment, so I got to thinking about the boardwalk series.  Maybe it was selling one recently, or maybe it was seeing a tv piece on boardwalks this past weekend.  The series came to a halt during Hurricane Sandy, with the Asbury block mostly drawn.  That block seems to be in hiding for the moment, but I had a few other ideas from the origins of the series that I haven't done yet.  Ideas that have been thought about, researched, but no block started.  Wasn't going to start a block today either, but I figured it would be good to do some sketching and get the ideas flowing again.


In the afternoon I went up to the Studio and did a few drawing in a sketchbook.  Above is a bar themed idea.  This composition borrows from local places.  Below is my latest concept for one featuring rides, the biggest boardwalk thrill in my youngest years.  Both sketches are very crude, but are a little different compositions from the last time I thought about these.  Both need to be worked further on larger pieces of paper, as I have more ideas to go with each theme.


If I'm lucky, I'll be able to get one of these idea to finished paper sketch before school starts up again.

Monday, August 03, 2015

I'm All Right


I called my old college friend Doug the other day, to consult with him on a linguistic issue.  Early in the  conversation he mentioned that he had been concerned, as he is one of those people who looks at this blog from time to time and had noticed a lack of recent posts.  Hoped I was well.  I assured him that my health is fine, just that long hours in my summer job, plus a recent heat wave, has kept me away from my Studio.  When I got home from work this afternoon I found I had four voicemail messages on my phone.  At first I was concerned that some kind of crisis was going on, but it turned out that all were from Molly.  Today is the first Monday of the month, our usual critique day (though I think we've had very few that day this year) and I hadn't contacted her about it yet.  Then follow up messages talking about possibilities for the meeting, and having not heard from me, concerns about my health, and the last one telling me she was going to organize one for tonight no matter what.  The series of messages started last week, but I just got all of them today (my phone is old and sometimes misbehaves).  So I sent out my series of e-mails, took care of a long list of errands and tasks, and got to the Studio just a few minutes late, but well before they were actually ready to start.


We had seven people in attendance tonight, five of whom had art.  The above board shows a variety of pieces.  Some of Molly's paintings at the top, below that a painting from Jane and some small ones from Mary G, and on the floor more Molly paintings.  Below are four more colorful Molly paintings, which it seems she had shown last time as well.



We had our share of ceramics as well.  Above, two figures from Margery in the nature of what we have come to expect from her.  Below, first time participant Samantha also brought some ceramics, shaped like foods- a strawberry and two involving beans.


No art from me or Tim, but maybe I'll come up with something for next month.