theme show.



In June, the Manayunk Roxborough Art Center is going to have a bike part art show to coincide with the ever-so-popular, Manayunk Bike Race. I myself, am SUPER PUMPED about a bike part show, and I couldn't wait to start thinking about what I could come up with the submit to the exhibit!

Snazzy, ay? I'm particularly excited about the merriment.

Last weekend, I started by cutting and sanding three panels of super thick, fine-a** quality plywood for my project and used a dark walnut stain to give it a rich, rustic look. (I'm noticing a whole triptych theme here, I'm wondering why it is I've been working in threes...) I really didn't think about the panels during the week: But on Friday, after learning about the impending weekend rain storm, I decided to go home and give it some much needed attention. No one likes to spray paint in the rain. Or at least, I don't.

I set up my bike-art-spray-paint-base-camp in the driveway so I didn't stank-out the birds in our backyard: We already have one cardinal that isn't so s-m-r-t, and I didn't want to affect future generations of birds from the fumes. One bird constantly flying into the window is quite enough, we don't need his baby-cardinals flying up to our cat thinking its a tree. ITS A TREE ITS A TREE ITS A TREE! Next, I took some of Lou's old mountain bike chain rings and started layering them on the panels. I had seven different spay paint shades, and began the process of spray... rearrange!... spray... rearrange! 

I just realized that this photo is of the same two panels repeated, instead of the three I actually completed. I'll have to take better photos and upload them later. See what fumes can do to you?!

Anywho, after about a billion layers of spray/rearrange, plus the period of pause and let dry, I covered each panel in a quick drying poly-acrylic to seal it all in and make it shiny and bright. I also started experimenting with the chain rings and spokes (not spokey-dokes, unfortunately... although, now that I think about it...) so I'll have to take a picture of that and post it, too. I'm not sure how to incorporate it all together, but I'm sure an afternoon of drinking ...I mean constant thinking. I mean drinking, should clear that up.

In other news, I'm cooking dinner tonight. I accidentally spilled a bunch of red pepper flakes into the olive oil I was simmering, and didn't think too much about it. I should have. I just tasted it, and it tastes like burning. Tasty. JUST BURNING.

framed! part duex

finished frame, sans stain

I now have two... TWO! paintings that are properly framed and ready to ... well... HANG for lack of better words! Over the weekend, I finished building the frame that I was working on by cutting pieces of 1"x2" and securing them to the back of the frame: It added much needed depth and sturdiness to the piece. Once the glue was dry and set, I ran the sander over the frame one last time to ensure that all the surfaces were smooth and even. A dark walnut stain was applied soon after, and once it was dry, I secured the three paintings inside and sat back to admire my work. To say I'm happy with the result is an understatement, since I'm famously HORRIBLE at woodwork. I always wanted to design a frame for those paintings that would become part of the piece, not just an accessory to it. The horizontal flow makes me swoon. Iz uber prowd.

On Monday, my super cool frame from PictureFrames.com came in, fully assembled and ready for Material Experiment #1! The painting fit in it perfectly and was secured with canvas clips: The ornate bright silver frame complimented it quite nicely.

The last step I needed to take with both frames was to finish them off with paper backing, wiring and labels... which I've never done. But, after watching about ten minutes of You Tube videos on the subject, I had brown paper, double sided tape, wire hanging supplies and spray adhesive in hand and ready to go. First I applied the double sided tape to the back edges of both frames. After cutting the paper to size, I pressed it onto the tape and went over it with a fid to make sure it really stuck. Then, I screwed in the hardware and twisted on the wiring. Finally, I sprayed the labels with a little adhesive, and stuck em' on.














So both paintings are ready to be displayed. Look at me, finally finishing something! With any luck, Sunset at the Beach will sell at the MRAC-RDC Silent Auction on Thursday, May 3rd: I'm donating it for the their fund raising effort. And hopefully, Material Experiment #1 will be selected to be displayed at MRAC's May show, which opens on May 6th. Maybe you'd like to come visit and see them in person...?

i'm learneding

To round off my amazingly productive Sunday, I went on a rampage mission to find a piece of plywood that would be awesome enough for my triptych painting. I started my search in the garage, since most awesome things end up being stashed in there. Behind the motorcycle, garden hose and endless amounts of crazy giant mountain bike tires, I found wooden gold: a 1” thick piece of plywood that measured around 12”x50”. F****** SCORE!

Now... I know that I'm not the best when it comes to woodwork (that's what she said!) but I really wanted to figure out this frame by myself. Having everything evenly spaced is über important to this self-proclaimed balance/proportion freak, so I started my measurements with the 12” length. HERE COMES THE MATH PEOPLE. The biggest painting I have is 9” in length, so that would leave me a 1.5” border around the painting. (12-9=3and3/2=1.5YAY)   However, I wanted the frame to overlap the paintings slightly, so I increased the border size to 1.75”.

Using the 1.75” border size as my guide, I continued to place the smaller two paintings next to the bigger one, adjusting the placements until I came up with a good configuration. That last sentence made me sound MUCH smarter than I expected it to. After drawing my guidelines, I was ready to step outside and cut the s*** out of my plywood.

Next, I used a LARGE drill bit to drill 12 holes into the plywood, one for each corner of the three paintings. I decided to use the jigsaw, since A: I know how to use it, and B: I knew where it was in the garage. After about 30 minutes, I had myself a rough-cut frame! My electric sander did all the dirty work smoothing it out, and now I’m ready to stain and assemble the final piece!

Three cheers for trying and succeeding!!