Running out of time

In the summer or fall every year I do a new artwork for my Christmas card.  And I just realized it's almost the end of September and I haven't even started!

Actually I do know what I want to do, and I even have the photos from last Christmas for reference.  So I guess I'd better get started, huh? 

I'm going to do a watercolor of one of my favorite flowers, an iconic symbol of the holidays to me, the amaryllis.  I'll try to chronicle my steps, so you can see how I progress through it. 

Which picture do you like:  left or right? 

Two down... one to go

OK, so this isn't the best photo in the world, but I set this out on my studio floor on Monday to measure and see if it was going to be:  1.  wide enough 2.  tall enough.  Yes, on both questions.

The tiles are all made, the last load goes in the gas kiln this week,  and now I'm starting to box it up.

We haven't started the bull nose tiles for the edges, but that should go very quickly, since we need around 100, maybe, not 7000. 

I'm really happy about how this combination of colors turned out, and especially excited to see some of our finished benches. 

Now the big push is on to press out the tiles for the sculpture stands.  The boys figured out Monday that we need about 1700.  So we'll probably make about 1900, I imagine, just to make sure we have enough. 

Press on!

Tile crazy

Some days I think we're all just going nuts.  Of course I'm being silly here, it's actually going fairly well.  Most of the bench and table tiles are in the finishing stages.  We've started making the tiles for the sculpture stands.  We'll be moving ahead full bore with that starting today. 

The benches are being poured as we speak in downtown Chandler.  Al and Ted have been out to measure a few.  They're a little off from our calculations, so we're brainstorming on how to compensate for that. 

Also figuring out how to do my Cityscape since the decision has been made NOT to put it on mesh.  So what I did was put a piece of paper under my layout, and make a drawing of each piece, then number it.  Then I put the corresponding number on the back of the tiles, with an arrow pointing the direction of how the tile was to be laid.  That should work, right?

One Down.....

Last night I started getting my first completed bench ready for installation.  Since this one, Cityscape 2010, is going to be composed on mesh before installation, I had to figure out my composition. 

Now that it's all laid out, I will go back and draw lines around each shape, number the spaces, then number the back of the tiles, box them, then take them down to Vision Gallery, along with the little placement map I'm making.

The folks at Vision are going to help me glue these on to the mesh, and then it will stay at Vision until the bench has been poured and capped.  Then the installation process begins. 

This is just the one side.  The other side and two end caps are the blue tiles that you see on the edge.  240 of them. 

One down, two to go. 

How many changes can you find?

OK, here's the original, again.  My thinking now is that I was far too ambitious with this project.  Have you ever made these mistakes:
1.  I didn't take enough time with the human form, so it looks stilted, not natural.
2.  My color combinations were not well thought out.  Sometimes intuitive is NOT a good idea.
3.  My perspective was off, and again, it made the painting end up stilted.
4.  I painted the shirt intuitively, instead of using some form of model.  Again, NOT a good idea. 

But it was a good lesson for me, and since it's in my guest room, I get to look at the lesson every time I walk by it.  Sometimes you have success, sometimes you learn good lessons.

Here's the changed painting.  I don't know if I improved it any.  I know I'm still unhappy with it.  How many changes can you find?  Besides the big ones, I mean.....

Steve and the Tile Press

A few postings ago I had wanted to show a picture of Steve at the Tile Press and then tell the story about it.  Well I still can't get that cool picture to work, so Sandy A. graciously sent me one she had.  Everybody all cozy and comfy?  Ok, here's how it went.  Al took us all over to meet a potter friend of his in Phoenix.  You can check out his website at http://www.hjalmarsonpottery.com/.  He had made his own tile press and was willing to show us how he had done it.  Additionally we got to see his studio, salesroom, and kiln area.  He also talked to us about making tile.  And we were more than willing to learn, knowing NOTHING!

While he was walking us around he pointed out an old compression ram press, telling us he had never had any luck with it.... it was irretrievably broken.  He asked us if we wanted it, with all the stuff.  It would help him to clean up his studio area and give him more work space.  Duh!  Of course we did. 

So we took it with us and Steve took on the project of getting it to work.  He proceeded to clean it up, find the parts needed, and fix the press.  Then he schooled himself on how to make the molds, not an easy process, I can tell you.  Then he taught us how to make our molds, and we went to work. 

It's only broken down once, and he got that fixed too.  I think I can honestly say for all of us, with the scope of the project that we have had, we couldn't possibly have done this without Steve. 

Critique

I made this painting a few years ago for a wall over the bed in my guest room.  The colors are in question, and there's just something about it that I've never been happy with.

It's very hard for me to step back and see what it is about a work that needs to be fixed.  Looking at it in the mirror sometimes helps, and taking a picture of it sometimes helps.

Here's what I think needs fixing:  First, the tiles are at the wrong angle, so they just seem to sit there on top of the painting, instead of being in it.  The girl's blouse looks twisted at a wrong angle instead of a correct one.  The bottom part of the wall in the corner is not straight, and maybe it needs to be another color so it doesn't fight with her skirt.  And I'm thinking now, looking at it again, that the jar needs to be lighter in color:  the question is, what color? 

If you have any ideas, I would truly welcome the help.  I like the premise of this painting, so I want to keep it, but I want to look at it without pain, so I need to fix it. 

You can be brutal, I can take it.....