Sculpture pedestals

Some of you have asked me about the sculpture pedestals - what they will look like.  They're all circular, from 3 to 6 feet in diameter.  A few are attached to the benches, like the one pictured here, and the rest are free standing.  There are seven of them, at last count. 

There will be lighting set in the top portion, with some kind of sculpture on the pedestal itself.  Those of you who are members of Ironwood Studio will know the tiles slated for these as long, skinny pieces, with a bump in the middle. 

All the sculpture tiles will be glazed in manila banana, with accent tiles in celadon and brown celadon.  You may think that sounds like a "quiet" color palette, but that's exactly what was requested by the City Arts commission.  They didn't want to take anything away from the sculpture positioned on the pedestal.  Good planning on their part, doncha think?

Project progress

I thought you might like to see the progress on someone else's bench besides mine.  This is Al, and one of his benches is in front of Serrano's in downtown Chandler. 

This is the street side, in progress.  Some of us made our benches with a design made up of a repeat of tile patterns.  Al chose to design his bench as one big concept, broken up into individual pieces.  No two pieces were the same. 

This is the bench he did with Sue, using the same concept.  He numbered each one, and laid them out for the installers in the correct order. 

It's on the corner of AZ Ave. and Boston.  Pretty cool, huh?

New project

A client wanted another painting to go with one of mine she just bought.  (Sun Salutation) - see on my website.  She wants a desert theme with just a touch of red.  So I sent her some cactus photos I had taken and she picked this one.  She said she even likes the little purple flower at the bottom.

So I decided to grid it out, because it's so complicated, and spent several hours attempting to draw it. 

At this point I decided that it was looking way too busy, and I needed to simplify.  Besides the fact I don't much care for that big dead prickly pear pad in the center, and wanted to eliminate some of the flower buds. 

I've just finished the redraw and will start painting this week.  I like it simplified, and I do feel more freedom to do a good job without having to slavishly stick to the original.  One thing I will have to be careful of is putting in the shadows at the end.  Eliminating some pads and some flower buds will change how the shadows fall. It will be a good exercise in observation and execution.

I'll keep you posted with it's progress. 

DONE ! ! !

I just got back from seeing my bench - finished now!!!  It looks like I just missed the guys putting in the grout - it was still wet.  It does seem a little dark, but I think it will look fine once it's dry.  I'm so impressed with the job the tile setter's did.  The picture at the bottom shows the street side. 

So..... what do you think?



It's actually happening!

Looky, looky, little cookie.  The installers started on my first bench yesterday, about 10:30.  I went back with my husband at about 5 and took this picture.  Everything on the sidewalk side is in except for the tiles they had to cut, and it is BE UUU TEE FULLL.  I couldn't possibly be more tickled.  This has been a long road, and to see it become reality is just a dream.  If you want to see it and are in downtown Chandler this weekend, this bench is at the corner of Buffalo and Arizona Avenue, right down the street from Sushi Eye.  Al and Sue's bench is in at AZ Ave. and Boston, and there's another down by Serrano's that's close to done.  This is just too cool.  

Making a table

I've wanted to have a couple of tile tables for my backyard for a long time.  Now that I can actually make my own tile, it's time to start this new project, as the other will be winding down sometime in November. 

I got these cool napkins for Tom's birthday party a couple of weeks ago, and I really liked the pattern. Ordered the table from http://www.bigceramicstore.com/ and it came in last week.  I need four six inchers and 8 - 2.5 X 6 inchers, and four 2.5 squares for the corners. 

I adapted the pattern from the napkin, changed some colors and sizes, simplified, and added my signature dots to these pieces.  It's hard to see the true colors because it hasn't been fired yet, but I'll show you when it comes out of the kiln.  I'm thinking I'm going to do some form of wavy lines for the side pieces, using all of the colors in the tile, then maybe a solid for the corners.  Can't wait to see how it looks when it gets fired. 

It's Crunch time.

No pictures today, just an update on tile.

My benches will be installed this week.  How cool is that?  Wednesday morning the horned toad bench will be installed at the corner of AZ Ave, just one block south of Chandler Blvd., on the west side of the street.  I'm going to go supervise the installers for a little while in the morning.  Bringing my chair, umbrella, and bossiest voice. 

The other one's across and south of the new City Hall.  It will either be later in the day or later in the week.  Playing by ear.  The tables haven't been poured yet, so we're waiting to see on those.  Our deadline is Nov. 20, and I think we just may be close to finished by then. 

New idea:  bought a tile table for my backyard, now I have to make the tiles.  There was a cool paper napkin I bought for my husband's birthday party.  I liked the pattern so much I'm going to do an adaption for my table.  The same feel, just different colors and a MUCH SIMPLER pattern.  I'll keep you posted on how it's going.  I've never done a tile table before, but so what!  Time to learn to do a new thing. 

Done, Done, Done

The original's on the left, the painting's on the right.

So, how'd I do?

The painting is gonna be my Christmas card this year.  I just have to figure out how to get that done.  Anyone know an online spot that does that?  If so, let me know asap.

On to the next thing.  Think I'm going back to drawing this week.

Finishing Steps

We're almost there!  I've deepened all the colors as far as I can take them, and put in some lines.  There's a lot more lines in the original photo, but I'm afraid I'll get too junky.

So the last thing to do is take off the masking fluid.  See picture below, with the masking fluid removed. 

Then I'll paint in the pistils, make my corrections, and I'm done.

Tile update:  All the tile for my benches is at Vision Gallery.  Delivered 18 boxes Thursday and Friday.  I'm getting so nervous about the installation.  Hope everything goes OK.

We're almost there

I got in another hour on the painting yesterday after the last storm.  Deepened and darkened colors and contrasts.  I am almost ready for the last phase of putting in the little lines.  I want to add a little more transparency to the petals on the right, and I think I want to darken the upper and lower left corners, maybe give them just a little personality.  Then I'll remove the masking of the pistil & stamen section and put in the faint lines in the petals.  Two or three more hours should do it. 

And, voila', a Christmas card will be born. 

Yesterday my grandsons and I did a little project.  They had brought a couple of the pumpkins you get in craft stores, and wanted to put something on them.  Their decision was their favorite Pokemon characters.  So they printed them on the computer so we'd remember the colors.  Then I drew the images directly on the pumpkins with a sharpie, and then they painted them in.  After the paint was dry we went over the lines again to sharpen it up a bit.  They had a lot of fun and it was exactly what they wanted.  There are more characters on the opposite side, but that picture didn't turn out as well.

Next Step

Hello again. 

Now I'm starting to add the deeper layers of color.  I go somewhat slowly here, seeing what works together, seeing what I like, and what I want to correct.

Each session is less than an hour, for a couple of reasons.  First, the color laid is going to look a little different when it's dry, and second, the painting itself is small enough that  the colors will bleed into each other if it is overworked.  Then you have mud.  Not good. 

I'm also getting ready in this step to switch to a smaller brush.

Now I'm using a smaller, round brush, and I'm bringing out the brights, and deepening the reds.  I've added more yellow, more orange. 

I've also changed the flower stalk on the right.  It wasn't reading like a stalk, and now it does.  The white "W" looking chunk in the center is the masked stalks.  They won't be that light later, but it's a real pain to have to paint around each, and this makes it a whole lot easier to do.

It's actually starting to look like a flower, doncha think?

We had a party this weekend for my husband's 65th birthday.  Here's us just taking a break before everything got going. 

We had a great time, and a HUGE mess to clean up the next day.  But it was worth it.  Tom really enjoyed seeing everyone.