Goblin Diorama - Part 3 and Field Project

Second attempt at building a house model.

This week I began working on the prototype of the house for the diorama.  My first attempt at a house had been too large.  So after a long intermission, while we rebuilt half our home after the plumbing disaster, I am finally returning to my project.  The top photo is the new prototype for the house.  It is about a third smaller than the original house. 

Field 6-29-2014

The house is build out of poster board.  I will not be using it on the diorama.  I worked with poster board for this because I did not want to start cutting into expensive materials until I had the size of things worked out.  If I had it to do all over again, I would have cut up some corrugated cardboard.  The poster board was so flimsy that it was difficult to work with.  Anyway, done is done, so at least I have an idea of what I am working towards.  The house is small, but it will be a bit taller on the diorama because it will be built with a field stone foundation which will raise it up about an inch.  I'm trying to make the house look as it it has been there for ages; old, weather worn, peeling paint, etc. 

New in the field.

I want the house to look creepy.  After all, this is a Halloween themed piece.  As I wrote earlier this year when I started the piece, the idea came from a poem called Little Orphant Annie by James Whitcomb Riley.  The refrain in the poem is "An the Gobble-uns 'at gits you Ef you Don't Watch Out!"  This poem inspired me to create my Halloween piece for this year about Goblins and spooky creatures.  I wanted it to be something different from the usual fun Halloween stuff.

Actually I hope I am able to complete the project by Halloween this year.  I started early, because some of these builds take quite a while to complete.  However, I had to stop working on the project from the end of February because of the plumbing problems.  Here it is the end of June and I am just getting back to things.  I'd like to have the piece finished by Halloween, but I am not sure that will happen.  I will keep working on the project until it is completed.  However, there is another project going on in the background, which will also take time away from the Halloween project.  More about the other project when it is completed. 

 It is Sunday, so it is time for the next field project picture.  You will be amazed at the change in the field since last week.   Today's field photo was taken at 8:14 am.  The temperature was 64 degrees Fahrenheit.  Winds were calm.  At this time of the morning the field looks very fresh because of the heavy dew.  By mid-afternoon it will look wilted due to temperatures in the upper eighties and nineties.  Although there have been scattered thunderstorms south and east of us, we have not had rain since Saturday, June 21st.  Things are starting to dry out.  I don't think we are expecting much rain for the next two or three days either.
    
On to other subjects.  The home repairs.  My husband is finishing up a few pieces of trim.  He has put a final coat of finish on the box he built to protect the new drain clean out.  He also decided that he needed to replace the particle board shelves that were in the closet of the smaller bedroom.  So I guess he is cutting and finishing them today.  Once the shelves are in, the final boxes of items will be moved back into that bedroom.

We spent most of yesterday looking at area rugs.  We finally found one that fit our budget and was something we both liked.  That was harder than one would think.  At the moment, the fashion in area rugs are muted colors  and made to look as if the rug is an antique.  What we needed from a rug was a pop of color for the room.  In many stores, modern style colorful rugs made of polypropylene  were selling for the same price as hand made Persian rugs. We were overjoyed to have finally made a selection.  However, the rug we liked was really meant to be wall to wall carpeting, so we had to send it out to be bound.  It will take about two weeks before it is ready.  Once the rug is down, we can unpack the rest of the boxes and will be finished with the whole repair of the downstairs. 

I should be blogging next on Wednesday as usual.  Check back then for progress on the diorama and a couple of side projects.

Progress on the Goblin Diorama

I've been able to make some progress on the diorama this week.  It feels great to be back in the studio.  So far, I have been working on the new mock up for the house.  I have decided to make the house taller but narrower.  Now that I have a plan, I will be starting the build of it tomorrow.  I hope to have a picture or two for Sunday's blog post.

When I first started the diorama, back before the plumbing disaster, I found that my house looked outsized for the base of the diorama.  I made one house model that was smaller, but as I suspected, it will greatly decrease the size of the figures and other pieces of the diorama if it is kept in proportion.  After working on really small figures on my Folk Art Carousel project, I really did not want to work with that small size again.  It is difficult to work on something when it is tiny.  This house will be a compromise.  It will not be totally in proportion to everything else, but it will be tall enough that I can have a little lee way in making larger figures.  It will be a size that I can work with, although the figures will be smaller than I would have liked.  It is about the best I can come up with at this point. 

Sometimes, when I let a project sit for a while, I find that I lose interest in the project.  I don't want that to happen on this one.  I am hoping that once I actually get started on the build that my enthusiasm for it will return.  At the moment, I feel somewhat ambivalent.  I think that once I get started that I will begin to enjoy the process and the ideas will start to flow.  So I am making a commitment to having a picture of the start of the build for Sunday's blog just to get started.   Now, if no more trees fall and my house will just stop needing more repairs, I can get going on this project.

Field Project and Update on Things

Field 6-22-2014

You can see a big change in the field from last week.  In just a few days, it has sprouted green seedlings in the foreground.  I think it is soybeans, but I am not sure just yet.  In the background, rows of sticks have been put in next to some tomato plants.  I'm thinking some pole beans may be going in there too.  I've also noticed that some bales of hay or straw have been stacked at the edge of the filed.  There is a trailer parked at the far side of the field.  I'm thinking that might be storage for tools or fertilizer.  This morning it was 72 degrees Fahrenheit and winds were calm.  The sky is overcast, but there is only a small chance of rain or thunderstorms today.

Speaking of thunderstorms, we have had some bad luck this week.  A strong storm came through on Thursday in the late afternoon.  The winds were 50 to 60 miles an hour.  My husband and I were watching the hail come down when a strong burst of wind ripped off the top half of a tree and dumped it in our yard.  It brought down the whole crown of the tree plus about thirty feet of the trunk.  We spent most of the day yesterday cutting up the tree and removing the debris.  We have been reaching the exhaustion point from working on repairs after the plumbing disaster, and now this.

We lost power for several hours.  It was hot and humid.  At least the electricity was back on before morning.  Many times when we lose power, it lasts for several days.  We were lucky this time. I just want to remind readers that if I don't make a blog post or post a notice that there is a reason for no blog post it generally means the power has gone out.  In bad storms, we have lost it for as long as ten days.

The storms have been increasing in intensity around here.  In the last three years, many of the trees on our property have been damaged by storms ripping them in half.  We have a lot of trees that are so damaged that they need to be taken down.  It is really expensive to have trees taken down now.  In the last year or so there has been so much tree damage all over the state that every tree service has more work than they can handle.  

Anyway, cleaning up a downed tree diverted us from the plan of finishing up from the plumbing disaster.  I had hoped we would be done with it this weekend.  We were down to the last few items that needed work such as installing shelves and building a protective cover for the new drain clean out that was place in a closet..  We have stalled at unpacking the boxes in the den.  The rug in there is old, and pretty much the worse for wear.  We decided it needed to be replaced.   Yesterday morning, before we started the tree clean up we went out to look for an area rug.  We had an idea in mind, but rug prices have gone up since we last went rug shopping.  So we decided that we needed to bring our vision of the room in line with the reality of our budget.  It will result in a much more mundane carpet I expect.  At that point we decided to table the rug shopping and go home to clean up the debris.  When we have a chance, we will go get samples of different colors of carpet to see what works with the room.  In the mean time, the items that go in the den will remain packed up because it is no use putting them out and then having to move them off again to get the carpet under the bookcase.

Our other ordeal from yesterday was to shop for a new lawn mower and weed whacker.  Our lawnmower from the cabin was damaged beyond repair on the last trip up.  The lawnmower hit a stump.  Ordinarily the lawnmower has a pen that gets thrown so the mower shaft won't be ruined.  The pen did not drop for some reason, and the shaft lawnmower was bent.  It could not be repaired, so we took it to the dump.  Strangely, the same thing happened to the weed whacker.  It hit a stump and flew into pieces.  The spring that flew off was never found.  So we had to buy a new weed whacker too.  We will use the new machines at the house, and the older ones at the house go up to the cabin.  It is just much sooner than we had planned on doing it.  Anyway, my husband had been doing a lot of research to find the best mower, studying the best deck size, motor size, etc.  He finally decides on a particular mower.  There is only one dealer in our area, and it is not close to the house.  So we drive all the way out there, only to find that he does not stock the model my husband has decided upon. So we head for the home store to purchase a mower that had as many options that he wanted as possible.  That took up half the morning.  Although we gave up on purchasing carpet for the day, we did purchase a mower and weed whacker, so I guess the morning was not a total loss.

We are slowly but surely moving towards completion of the plumbing disaster clean up.  Today my husband is removing a stack of scrap molding from the work room.  My outdoor work bench is finally uncovered so that I can get to it.  It is the first time I have seen it in months. 

Now that things are winding down, I can finally get back to work on my projects.

Back to the Goblins

Just at the point that I started to plan a diorama on Goblins for this year's Halloween project, a major plumbing fail decimated half my home.  The disaster actually happened in late February.  It was a couple of weeks before we understood the full extent of the problem.  That was at the beginning of March.  I have not been able to use my studio since then. It was packed with the items that used to be in other rooms.  We are finally on the verge of completing that major rebuild. There is still a lot of furniture that has to be moved and boxes to go through, but I expect that we will finish it off this weekend. 

I am having mixed feelings about returning to the studio.  On one hand, I am truly looking forward to sitting down at my table and starting to work on the project.  On the other hand, I feel as if I have lost the energy of the project because of the long interruption.  My goal for now is to try to get back into the mindset of the project.  I have to get back to the story and figure out where I was planning on going with the project all over again.  Sometimes it takes a bit for things to come back into focus.  We will see how it goes.  For now, I'm just going back to my original drawings to see what gets my attention.  That will be the starting point of the diorama.

Field Project 6-15-2014

Today there has been a big change in the field.  Last Sunday, only after a short time after I took the photo, the field was harvested and replanted with something.  I guess the crop that was in there was some sort of cattle feed.  I have seen that plant  mixed in with hay fields sometimes.  The For Sale sign is also gone.  My neighbor told me that she had seen two men standing on the edge of the field before it was plowed.  I'm guessing that a deal was struck and the field was sold.

I can see that the field has been divided into four parts by a grassy median.  I guess that there may be more than one crop going into the field.  A large rain storm came through the area on Friday.  It was a major gully washer.  I hope it did not wash away all the seeds that have been planted.  Hopefully, there will be a chance for some photos of crops growing soon.

On my walk to the field this morning I saw some blackberries forming on the wild blackberry vines.  Soon I plan to be picking some berries for breakfast.  If the birds don't get them first that is.  That's okay.  I know a place where there are a lot of blackberries growing wild.  I have a plan.

We are coming to the end of our home repairs from the plumbing disaster.  We laid the new flooring in the final room yesterday.  Today the baseboard and trim is being put back.  Then we will start moving the furniture back into that room.  Then we have to unpack everything we had to box up while we did the repairs.  While Bill is working on the baseboard, I plan to be finishing up cleaning the last upstairs room.  I am more than half way finished on that.  Most likely we will finish today; if not, then we will finish up this week.  I am looking forward to getting back to work in my studio.

After the Peanut Butter is Finished...

Covered in papier mache'.

I'm blogging about an older project today.  I have been working for months now to get my home back in order after the plumbing disaster.  We are in week fourteen of the recovery, and I am counting down the days until I can get all the furniture and boxes out of my studio so I can get back into it.  We are working on the last room that needs repairs.  So for the moment, I am blogging about a completed project rather than an ongoing project.

Every once in a while, I make a foray into some type of jewelry making from a recycled material.  In this case, a bracelet.  I decided to make bangle bracelets from a recycled peanut butter jar and newspaper.  I cut a ring of plastic from the peanut butter jar and covered it in papier mache'. 

After the papier mache' was dry, I painted it with gold paint and added flowers and foliage around the bangle.  Ultimately, I decided that the gold paint was not satisfactory, and repainted the outer edge of the ring with a pearlized white paint.  It looked much better, but for some reason I don't have a photo of it.  Regular readers may recognize my Wild Rose pattern that I used on my walking stick.

I also two other bangles from the peanut butter jar as well.  However, those pictures seem to have been deleted, or else they were accidentally placed in another photo file and I have not found them yet.  One of the other bangle bracelets was featured in Green Craft magazine Gallery Section.  That one was made with hand painted papers in various shades of turquoise.  The other was made from aluminum foil and tinted with a copper colored alcohol ink.  The bracelet looked like hammered copper.

An Art Opportunity and the Field Project

Field 6-8-2014

Morning Glories at edge of field.

I have news of an art opportunity for my readers.  There is a contest going on that I think some people may be interested in taking part.  Unfortunately, it is only open to people in the United States.  I hope that my readers in other countries will be interested in viewing the results.  However, if you live elsewhere and wanted to participate, I think the issue is the postage.  It might be worthwhile to email to see if you could have it shipped to an American address and then have it forwarded at your expense.  I don't know if they will go for that or not.  This is just a thought as they mentioned the postage issue somewhere in something I read about the contest.

I received news of this contest from an art newsletter email I received.  There is a contest going on called Mystery Build.  It is sponsored by Jerry's Artarama, a company that has been in business since 1968.  The Mystery Build contest is in it's third year.  This year giving out $21,000 in prizes. 

Ubiquitous weeds.

 

So here is the scoop, or at least as much of it as I can give you.  The company has created a package of various and sundry art and craft objects.  Every package is the same.  You order the package, for which there is a fee, and build an assemblage from the bits and parts.  The build is based on a theme of their choosing.    You photo document your build and submit them along with the photo of your completed project.  There is a panel of judges and a public vote to determine the winners.  There are a number of rules that apply.

To get in on the contest, go to MysteryBuild.com for the full details and order your kit.  I cannot tell you any more than that.  We are not allowed to discuss what is in the box or our plans.  In fact, I cannot even blog about my build until after the closing of the submission period.  So you won't be hearing more about this project until the end of October. 

FYI: the kits became available in November, so some people have had them for a few months already.  Depending on what you decide to build, you are already pushing the envelope for completion by the final submission date in October.  As some of my regular readers know, some of my mixed media assemblages can take months to build.  So if you are planning on getting in on this contest this year, order your kit pronto!  Otherwise, consider waiting until the next kit comes available in November.

It is Sunday, and after a break for a holiday; and because of our ongoing rebuild of our home,  I am back to taking a picture of the field each Sunday.  At this point, the field has remained disappointingly the same.  I was hoping for some crop that changed significantly.  I have come to the conclusion that whatever is in the field was actually planted there when they harvested out the corn stalks from last year.  The field is way too uniform to have just come up naturally.  The crop (?) still has flowers on it that resemble peas, although the leaves don't look like any pea that I have seen.   Anyway, it is what it is, and so you have today's field picture. 

Although the plants in the field don't appear to be getting any larger, the weeds on the edge of the field are shooting up.  The wild morning glories are starting to come out.  Funny story, they used to all have purple flowers.  Then I planted blue morning glories around my lamp post.  That year, all the morning glories in the field turned blue and remained that way for years.  I have not planted morning glories in a long time.  It was only in the last year that the morning glories have started to revert back to their purple color. 

A Gift of Art

Shaman Fan by Ruth Scarlott

At last, I am back to my computer.  It has been a very long week. 

Today I wanted to blog about a gift I received from my step-father.  It is a beautiful and interesting piece entitled Shaman Fan.  This is a beautiful piece by Ruth Scarlott;  born in Reidsville, North Carolina in 10/27/1922  deceased in Norfolk, Virginia on 9/23/2010. 

Ruth was a self-taught artist working in Norfolk, Virginia.  She was a member of the Tidewater Art Alliance.  According to the information I found about her on line, she usually showed her work in local museums and regional shows rather than having her work in galleries.

Ruth Scarlott worked in handmade paper and mixed media collage.  At the time that she began working with these materials, she was the only one in Norfolk using them for several years.  She began making handmade papers because she could not find what she wanted for her work in the range of commercial papers available.  Her need for special paper caused her to study Japanese paper making techniques.

The Shaman Fan is a wonderful example of her work.  The work is made of paper, twigs, vine, bone, thread, and shark's teeth.  Some of the paper you would swear is leather.  I had a very visceral reaction to the work when I first saw it.  You have the feeling that you are viewing something primal, dark, and mysterious.  The work has an energy to it that draws you in and allows you to imagine that a shaman might really have owned this fan at one time.  You wonder what type of person this really was, and how this fan might have come into being.

My step-father gave this piece to me after seeing my are piece:  Shaman Staff.  I had never seen Shaman Fan before creating my own art piece.  Like so many people that collect beautiful and interesting objects, there was not enough space to display everything at once.  My step-father is a photographer and artist.  He has a true eye for art with beauty and energy.  I feel very privileged that he has passed this piece of art to me.

On another subject, I am still working on the rebuild of the downstairs after the plumbing disaster.  We have almost reached another milestone.  We have finished laying the new flooring in the large bedroom.  This weekend the baseboard and trim will be put in.  After that, we will move the furniture back into that room. Yea!  After thirteen weeks we are finally able to move back into our bedroom.  A bed at last.  Sleeping on the floor on an air mattress long term is not very comfortable.  If we had actually understood that it was going to take this long when we started, we would have done something else.  However, by the time we understood that, we were already so far into it that it was pointless in trying to dig the furniture out from the back of the place where it was stored.

After we move the furniture back into the bedroom, we still have one more bedroom to go.  It has to have the old flooring taken up.  After that, we will wash walls, paint, and put in the new flooring and trim.  Only a few more weekends of work and we will have that room completed also.  Then we need to finish putting the furniture back in place in the den and we are done.  It has taken us from the late part of winter through spring to finish the rebuild.  I'm definitely ready to do something else for a while.

Next blog post will be about a contest that may be of interest to my readers.
    

Construction- not blogging

I'd planned to blog today about a gift of art I had received today.  However, due to a very busy schedule this week I did not have time to do the research on the artist. 

Our construction schedule is so busy today that I am not even going to have time to go out and take my field picture.  Please check back on Wednesday.  I will have a new blog post up then.