Decorative stuff
Somewhere between sculpture and paintings
This was the start of real art for me, I got the idea to make
stained glass. I took a simple class--it's not hard at all to do,
just kinda tedious--and made these:
This here is my Wheel of Fortune clock; it's the
first thing I've sold since my early childhood. Tree of Life
theme in the middle, and the skulls are alternately making fun of
you, descending, sleeping, and climbing again. It's the wheel of
fortune in life, get it? Good.
I made this clock for our first anniversary..
An exploding-time mobile I made at the wife's
request... that
largest component near the top is actually a clock itself. As if
it had exploded, you see.
This candleholder is Aslan from C.S.
Lewis's
The
Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe. I made his eyes by taking
a glass marble and making a mold of it, then filling that will
clear epoxy resin and a small iris-shaped bit of gold foil. It
took several tries for it to work out, and even now the eyes look
kinda wonky up close. But they catch the candle flame and throw
out the light as nicely as I'd hoped. And the hair works too, its
shadows get thrown behind the face and dance as the candle flame
dances.
I can't believe I never put in the big
mobile. this one is about 10 feet across and six high; it's only
suitable for a vaulted ceiling. I'll miss it if we move somewhere with
shorter ceilings. It's patterned after a mobile I saw in the New York
City Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop, only I added the red one.
When it's summer and the fans are going, it moves all around; my
2-year-old daughter really loves to stare at it.
Here's what I've been working on the
last year. This kitchen was formerly all white vinyl. I painted it with
primer, then with the terracotta red paint. I then sponged on some
copper, which is a color I love, but it wound up being
Oh-My-God-Too-Shiny. Unsure what to do, I started to cover it with some
burgundy I had for something else, and I discovered that if I made
back-and-forth swishing movements with the covering paint, just enough
of the copper showed through and the overall effect was very subtle and
cool. After this I covered it with Varathane water-based varnish, and
recovered the spots likely to get heavy wear with Man-O-War marine spar
varnish. There are a few places I now need to retouch, as my belt
buckle has scraped against the cupboards while washing dishes. Watch
out for that.
What you're seeing here is a small
bathroom I did over. It started off with white walls and formica
countertops. I started off gluing down aluminum foil (shiny side up) to
the countertop. I used varnish to glue it which I would NOT recommend;
instead use something that doesn't need contact with air to cure, like
epoxy resin. The foil will make the beads much more shiny. I got (I
think) seven bags of red glass beads from Wal-Mart and glued them down
so they're touching each other. You can see I got some other color
beads and added square regions for variety. I glued them down with one
of those tougher silicone-like glues. Once those dried I mixed up grout
in the normal way. I tried to mix some paint in with the grout, but
lots of paint didn't affect the color that much. Once the grout dried I
mixed some acrylic paint very watery and painted over the beads. OK, so
then some of the paint got on the beads and wouldn't come off. I got
out my trusty Dremel and buffed the paint off the beads, which also had
the effect of buffing off the red layer of paint that covered the clear
glass beads! Moral: make sure you get beads that are solidly colored.
Don't depend on acrylic paint to not adhere to stuff just because it
didn't adhere to the stuff you wanted it to adhere to.