My Art and Music

More Fun, Part II

As if once wasn't enough....here goes for the second table....in cherry....yum, yum!!!

A jig invented by the fine furniture maker himself....see below to see all the ins and outs on the jig.

Oooooooooooooo - just stained - pretty, pretty!

Nothing like resting on one's laurels!!!

One of about many coats of finish.

The legs and leg headers and various pieces get their stain and finish.

Look at that grain!

Just in the office - brand new

All broken in and looking goooood!

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Now about that jig -

But there's nothing like a movie!!

Something Fun

My art spans a lot of different mediums, but this is the first trek into woodworking

Isn't this beautiful.  Well, I thought it was spectacular, but I had no idea what was ahead of me!!!

OK the truth is that I had very little to do with this except, "hold this," or "stand here", or "put your foot here", or "clean up this mess," or "hold that screw"!!!!  But hey, somebody's got do all that hard work!  So in reality the table couldn't have been made without me, even though I haven't a clue about woodworking!

I picked out the pieces and we put them together (which is a lot more complicated than I thought), and then rounded the corners with a router bit, which I'd never seen before, but aren't these corners beautiful?  Just what I wanted.

Next is creating dowels to insert into the leg bases that will then be screwed into the table.  This is for stabilization as one of the things I've requested is that the legs be sturdy so that the table isn't hobbling along the kitchen floor while some quest is sawing through a piece of beef!  Well, the table won't.

We've sanded the table down, and have applied some stain.  At this point I think the table's pretty neat, but then we apply the stain, and the grain of the wood starts coming out beautifully!

Backtracking a little.  This is a sample we made up to check a few things to make sure we could get a few things right.  We did, so this is just an added piece that's a new price for my assistant's home now.

Just after the stain has been wiped off.  This is a photo of the base of the leg which is screwed into the table top.  I thought this was a beautiful touch.  This was done to stabilize the table, but it turned out to be an interesting corner technique that I thought had a valid artistic quality to it.

Here it is with one coat of finish on it and ready for two more coats.  Then we have to let it cure for 10 days and then apply a wax that will make the polyurethane really pretty - according to the pros at the store.

Here's another picture of my kitchen table almost finished!

Workspace

No matter what sort of artist you are, having a space that is workable, its contents accessible, and organized to the point that the artist can use the contents and move around in the space.  The area should be organized in such a way as to invite the artist and not scare him/her off with voices of: "Do me!  I want your attention here!  No wait, turn here and look at me and fix me!" 

Now this doesn't look like something in need of help - just a little work and it's in great shape.  The truth is that this "before" picture wasn't really before.  This is more like an "in-between" picture.  The real truth is that things were much worse than this, and there was very little room to walk around in the garage, and tables were piles on top of piles of stuff.

But with some time and thought the "in-between" mess above evolves into:
 
Yes this is our famous fish eye lens at it's best, hence the distortion but the ability to catch all of the walls. 

Here is another view - what a workroom!  All ready to be used!

And of course what do you do with an organized, working studio?....you make something....that is to follow!

My favorite football team

What can I say...I'm Sooner born, bred and will be dead (hopefully after I croak!)

But surfing found this little bit of history which is fascinating:

STS-119 Launch 3/15/09

OK - I'm a little late, but I'm a little behind on somethings.

We were in Key Largo doing a little bit of diving (checking out my dive buddy's new camera click here for some of our shots), and were watching the tube when they were announcing a shuttle launch in a couple fo minutes....so I thought - Hey, just 300 miles away - we should be able to see something....

Well something doesn't describe it.

OK - it's not the definitive launch shot - but it was my first launch viewing!!!

Studio Gallery and Ideas

I belong to this really fun gallery.  It's called the Studio Gallery, because we use it as a studio and a gallery - we're original thinkers that way ya know!!!

We have openings twice a year, to show off our new work.  We get ourselves all spiffed up and look really great with all our new art up.

We usually have a guest artist to add something new to our show.

And then we have classes in our gallery (it is a "studio gallery" after all)

 

But we also have other classes

 

This was a class for collage

We have a wonderful facility for other artists who might be interested in teaching or art workshops in the Oklahoma City area.  You can contact the Studio Gallery here for more information.

At Night

My diving buddy has a new camera and we had some fun last night....

It started right outside the front door....the Bradford Pears are in bloom and with the street light back lighting them it was a gorgeous shot.  This was about the best of the subject matter, so we hoped in the car and took off.

First stop was

A local church.  I love this cause you can see straight into the sanctuary and the alter.  And the stain glass windows are always beautifully lit.

An ol favorite in our town.  During the 60's & 70's the kids would hang out here, and it's still popular with a great burger!

Another shot.  He couldn't resist....

And still another - it's fun to see what all a great fish-eye lens can do.

This is a landmark high-rise in the neighborhood with a revolving restaurant on top - too much fun.  The Bradfords in bloom and the lit building make for a great show!

Another - just of the building - the fish eye at work.

We couldn't resist this either - now that our capital has a dome, it looks a lot better.

 
The famous Petunia #1 as it was drilled in a Petunia patch.

Christmas for babies

When you shop and do Christmas for babies, it's like you've discovered Christmas all anew again.  My friend has a grand daughter who we went shopping for today and I was in charge of wrapping all the gifts which is almost as fun as unwrapping....because of course that's what you think of when you're wrapping!

So here they are - all ready for a Santa delivery:

 

Mostly clothes and such, but a few toys to open on Christmas morning

 

OK - went over board on this one

 

All ready for Grandpa's sig

 

Here's a close-up of the Christmas Angel for Isabella!

A long-time dream come true - Spoonflower

This has got to be the coolest thing alive.  Spoonflower is a fabulous place where you can upload your fabric design and they will print it for you.  I've been wanting to do this for years, and am elated to get a place that will do this.  The cool part is that even if your design is a little quirky and something only you would be interested in, they will do it for you!!!!  And it's not all that expensive.

So here's my quirky little idea....as I'm a diver, love stuff that has fish, and that sort of thing on there - so this was my "test" design:
 
And

Now this matched together like this:

You can click this for a larger view.

Now lest you think that I'm some sort of genius....I arranged this from an old design by Esher which is this design:

What I wanted accomplish with my "test" was to see how well Spoonflower would match this design and needed something pretty intricate - I thought this fit the bill

So here's what I submitted to Spoonflower

This is a little different than the watercolors above, but I had to do some simplification - after all this was a test.....

So here's the end result:
 
Of course now I have to make it up!!!!

That will be the next blog!

IF: Opinion

I always think the topics don't pertain to anything I'm doing, then POW!  Something happens and there it is.

This requires just a tad explanation....but never fail, I'll supply not only the explanation but the cartoon as well.  But basically my opinion is: Beat the h- - - out of OSwho!!!!

Saturday nite the University of Oklahoma Sooners play the Oklahoma State Cowboys in an in-state Bedlam Rivalry.  This year the stakes are higher than just braggin' rights.  If OU wins by a substantial margin (which translates into "show points for the polls") then OU could have the opportunity to play for a national championship.

Apparently the Wronghorns are so worried about the status of their ranking, they have raised enough money to hire a plane to fly over Boone Pickens Stadium to remind the public voters than saxet deserves higher ranking and therefore the opportunity to play in a nat'l championship. 

Enter the Ruf-neks a student Sooner support squad that are the only support group authorized to carry and shoot 12-gage shot guns which go off with every touchdown.  They are trained thoroughly and are in charge of riding/driving and care of the Sooner Schooner during games.  I personally think that the OU vs OSwho game will be a target rich environment - on the ground with the football squad beating the Cowboys, while the Ruf-neks can target the sexat flying plane!

My final opinion....I think a rematch between the Wronghorns and the stellar Sooners would be splendid - it would shut those ol' saxet Wronghorns once and for all!