Fun With Paint

So, I just had the best weekend, feeling like a kid again because I just got myself a bunch of art supplies and had a blast painting.

I'm not really a visual person, and fine-motor skills have never been my forte, so I would never have thought that painting would be a viable hobby for me.  Turns out, I may have been wrong.  I doubt I'll ever be "professional grade" or anything close, but I'm having a lot of fun and I think I can still manage some okay stuff.

I blame a friend from church for starting me down this path.  This particular friend is a regular patron of a nearby Paint Your Own Ceramics type shop, which also happens to hold a number of different craft and painting classes.  After seeing my friend's posts and looking at upcoming offerings a few weeks ago, I became intrigued and decided--what the heck?--to try out one of the canvas paining classes.  These feature an image designed by an experienced artist, who gives step-by-step instructions how to re-create that image for yourself.  I really enjoyed the class, and I discovered that even when I couldn't do things "perfectly" the medium of acrylic paint is pretty forgiving.  So I could do this!

My first effort.  The leaves were only supposed to have thin streaks down the middle for veins, but mine turned out thicker.  Then again, that produced a really interesting two-tone effect, and my trees turned out well, so WIN!

Now hooked, I took two more classes.  The latest turned out really well, and the instructor jokingly remarked that, now I'd attended a few classes, I ought to be getting my own supplies to do my own art....  Obviously, great minds think alike, because I'd already ordered some books on painting (it pays to be grounded in the basics before going wild).  Those books arrived on Friday, much to my delight.

My latest painting class result.  This got rave reviews so now IT'S ON!

My appetite thoroughly whetted, it was "kid in a candy store" time.  Reference books in hand, and some extra money in the bank, I skipped to the nearest art supply store and proceeded to run amok.  I picked up an all-purpose easel, palette, some good-quality brushes and paints, a few additional accessories, and a goodly selection of stuff to paint on.  Once home, it was time to convert my poor, dignified dining room into a studio!

Leo and Castor examine my purchases to ensure quality.

Step one, of course, was to remove the (very nice!) table cloths and fold them gently onto a hangar to be stored in a safe location.  Step two was to deploy protective measures:

Smock and drop cloth (re-purposed heavy-duty garbage bag, since it was convenient) to prevent messes--or at least contain them!

Then I got to figure out how the easel worked--pretty straightforward once I got the hang of it--and deploy it in tabletop mode with palette and water-jars standing by.

Looking more like a studio!

Then came the fun part: unpacking all the paints, brushes, sponges and other supplies.  I then arranged them in the very nice caddy I found at the art shop.  With the easel being portable/collapsible, and almost everything else fitting in the caddy, stowing everything away for guests or cleaning days and getting it all back out again will be easy, which is why I splurged on the caddy.  Also, Pollux can't steal my paint brushes when they're stored inside.  That bit is important.

Stuff!

Next I just had to put something on the easel and I'd be ready!

Voila!  A studio!  I switched over to the long side of the table for more room.  

All we required was someone to do the painting....

Portrait of the artist as a young geek.

Then it was playtime.  I started by testing out my colors and getting a first feel for how they mixed.  The basic paint set involves a set of neutrals, a big tube of white, and two shades of each primary for mixing all the secondary colors.  (Turns out you need a yellow-favoring red for mixing oranges, and a blue-favoring red for purples and so on.)  So that's what I've got, though I confess I also picked up tubes of gold, silver and copper metallics.  Because shiny!

After that I tried a few basic exercises proposed by the one book to grow more familiar with my paints and brushes, which were interesting.

Leo and Castor help me with my work.  

Some of these early efforts have now been put up on the wall to add color, because an artistic space should be lively.  I practiced diluting the paint so it acted more like water color, using different brushes, and mixing colors.  I have been able to re-create the slate grey of Siamese Blue Point, but haven't quite managed Leo-Cat Orange, though I think I am close.

My "play wall"--and yes, that is painter's tape, so no walls were harmed in the making of this photo.

Yesterday, I tried creating some "moonglow" using a dry brush, and a nebula effect with sponges.  I think other techniques might yield better results, but that wasn't bad for a first try.

Dry brush "moon" and sponge-tap "nebula" done as an experiment on newsprint.  

That, then, was my weekend.  I'm looking forward to many more spent fooling around in front of an easel.

On The Homefront

Like many Saturdays, today has mainly been about getting things done around the house.  Along with stowing groceries and starting the laundry, I took the time to water everything outside on account of how hot it has been.  I even watered the bigger trees, because if the summer is half as hot and dry as it feels like it is planning to be, I figured it would be a good idea to fortify everything against it as much as I can.  So the planter box got some water, the fig got some water, the redbuds got some water, the kitty got some water....

Hold on a second....

The real main event of the day, however, is an event that has been in the works for a while.

One thing about having my first real job post Grad School has been coming to grips with the fact that I am no longer a lowly student living in a grad pad.  It was a nice grad pad, really, and perfect for my circumstances at the time, but it was pretty clearly intended for the rental market, and I furnished it on a pretty tight budget.  The few nicer things I had in it were either the furnishings that had been in my room for years growing up, or were pieces my parents had to spare and were kind enough to pass along.  (I don't recall ever thinking such things, but if, at any time, I ever was so foolish as to think that it was "lame" having parents who spent so much time in antique stores, I have long since realized my folly.) 

So, I had a lot of work to do when I moved into my new place.  There were only a couple of things to do to the house itself; one room had previously been a nursery, and was painted ohmigosh PIIIIIIINK, so that had to be fixed, and the back door to the patio was originally a (really ugly, cheap-looking, ill-fitted) set of French doors, so a much nicer sliding door had to be acquired and installed.  Also at the top of the list was a washer and drier set with more than two cycle settings between them.  (The set that sold with the old house were on the simpleminded side.  Their general settings were Harsh and Harsher.  The Washernator and Dryzilla got the job done, but they were not kind to clothes.) 

Once these items were taken care of, however, I was still left with two empty rooms, one half-empty room, and a totally tasteful collection of Walmart Special particle-board furniture that desperately Needed To Die.  This whole process of furnishing my new place has taken quite a while (is it still a "new" place at almost three years?) but after a long journey the place is really looking great.  I picked up a set of office furniture for the first guestroom/home office/den (the ex-nursery), and bought some nice living room furnishings from a colleague who was nearing retirement and looking to downsize (that worked out well for both of us).  Then came the super-classy particleboard entertainment center.  That turned into quite a project.  After all, if I was replacing the furniture, it might be time to think of upgrading the serviceable but now way too small TV that sat on said furniture.  And if I was going to get a really nice TV, it was going to need some sound to go with it....  The people at Best Buy loved me that day.

All this, of course, has been the work of a couple of years (no hurry, right?).  With the Great TV Upgrade, the last piece of particleboard was finally dead, and I felt quite accomplished if I do say so myself.  The one thing really remaining was the dining room--or, more accurately, the space intended to be a dining room but which has gone unused because of a complete lack of dining furniture to dine on.  Well, a little while back on a particularly pleasant Saturday I hopped into the faithful car and took a road trip up to a great little antiques place my Mom and Dad discovered on the route between their place and mine.  They had exactly what I was looking for: there was a cute drop-leaf table with Queen Anne feet which would fold nicely out of the way if/when I need the space for orchestra practices, and a set of really neat chairs with a kind of unique design to their backs. 

The biggest hitch was getting them all back home, since my car--as awesome as it is and all--definitely did not have enough room.  So I had to arrange for shipping, which was not cheap, but it was the only feasible way for me to manage things.  It also meant having to wait for a while until the shipping folks could arrange the pickup.  Well, after all of that, today was Delivery Day, and I can now proudly say I have a proper dining room--and a fully furnished house!

The dining room is a small space, but a nice one.  Here it is "before," ready and waiting:

And finally:

An actual dining room!  The pictures on the wall are hung thanks to my parents, who took time to help put them up before heading home last week.  Only one thing was needed to properly complete the whole ensemble:

There!  Is perfect.

Leo got to spend a little time in "kitty jail" while everything was being brought in, as he apparently thinks he's part of the cast of The Great Escape, making it his mission in life to find a way out the front door.  However, he clearly held no grudge against the new arrivals, finding the table to be an excellent vantage point from which to survey his Vast Domain.  The chairs were also objects of great interest:

Does this mean he gets Fancy Feast....?

So!  It was a very exciting day, and it really feels nice to have finished (more or less) putting together my home.  Now to decide how to celebrate....

A Legend In His Own Mind

As I have said in "about me," I happen to be the parent-person of two felines. The younger of the two is Mr. Leo. He's posing for us below.



Is he not a totally cute cat-cat? Yes, yes he is.



He enjoys his food--rather too much, in fact--but he will tell you that he is merely "extra floofy". He also holds the firm belief that everything--and I do mean everything--is a cat toy. One of his favorite objects to appropriate is my work ID on its lanyard. This can be dragged along by the "neck", which he thinks is fun, because the Mighty Lion is then dragging his Helpless Prey back to its Den.

His other all-time favorite activity is being let out to play in the backyard. That's where he was in the last two pictures, but when not rolling around on the porch he might be hanging out beside the little redbuds next to the porch swing:




No outside play for him today, alas, due to cold and cloudy weather.  But by tomorrow there is a good chance it will be clearer, and the Doorkeeper might just let him out again.  It's a tough life he has.