Day 151 - 365/2014

Day One Hundred Fifty-One

I went to the lumber yard today, ready to ask if they had a scrap pile like in the old days where you could pick through leftovers and purchase them.  When I got to the lumber yard I was saddened to see that they were closed...apparently they close at 2 pm on Saturdays.  Oh well.  I did the rest of my errands and went home...but when I arrived in my driveway I was delighted to find a carpenter with a chop saw working on wood trim.  I asked him if he would make ONE cut for me if I paid him.  He asked what it would be, etc. and said sure, bring the board out and he'd do it.  I parked the car, ran in the house, swept everything off the bottom shelf on the wall near my desk and confiscated the long piece of pine.  I grabbed a ten dollar bill and took the board out to the carpenter.  He had already taken the saw off of his table and was on his phone while he waited for me.  He initially politely refused the money, but I insisted saying he had to stop what he was doing, take the saw off the table, it was really hot and he was drippy wet with sweat...all that stuff...he finally acquiesced and then cut my board with one drop of the saw blade.  YAY!!!

A little later on I took the board down to the basement to pick up where I left off yesterday.

The board cut by the carpenter.

Figuring out how to position the posts for legs on the board for a base.  Today everything went as smoothly as I hoped it would yesterday -- the drill went right into the wood, the screws went right into place.  Easy peasy...it just took a bit of time.

Yay -- the legs are not exactly stiff and stable yet, but they are in place.

The board is not as wide as I had planned, but you make do with what you have on hand sometimes...the posts on the outside corners of the board will work just fine...I will have to reinforce them for strength at some point, but for now, they are in place.

I chose one of the larger tomato cages and I actually found 4 of the copper things I was hoping to find to secure the legs/tomato cage in this first stage of construction.  The metal cooperated and bent easily and the screws went in easily, too!

It's kind of hard to see in these photos right now, but this is how the skeleton of this guy looks.  I have no idea how he will turn out -- this is REALLY what I call starting from scratch.

Another view...the camera couldn't capture what I was seeing...the wires are so thin they get lost in the photo.

And another view from another angle...I don't know if the big end with be the head end or the tail end...probably the long legs of the tomato cage will turn into a tail -- that makes the most sense to me right now.

Pretty decent shot...it is a little wobbly, but it holds together!

What will come next is figuring out what the heck this guy is -- in a preliminary state...which end is which, etc.  I have that papier mache "rock" that Ingrid gave me...that might come into play at some point...we'll see.  I want to keep the body fairly lightweight and yet solid.  I will probably pack the tomato cage area with wads of plastic wrappers that have accumulated in Studio B.  Dunno yet...

365/2013 - Day 61

whew -- finished the tomato cage in record time!

I still have to permanently affix the balls to the pokey wires at the top of the tomato cage display thing, but I did it -- I finished it today!!!  It feels like my right arm is going to fall off at the shoulder -- that is a lot of wrapping and winding balls of yarn and wrapping more and then wrapping wire over the wrapped wires.

the day started with fine sanding the painted balls and putting on a final coat of paint

then I coated them with Liquitex matte varnish (still wet in this photo)

I made the decision to do the legs in ribbon that I had in my ribbon stash...I had enough of this blue to do two legs

and enough of this olive ribbon to do one leg

I could've done two legs with this ribbon but I wanted to save some -- it is so soft -- it feels like a man's tie.  The blue legs got olive wire and the olive legs got blue wire -- it was really cool that I had all of this stuff already!

yay -- the legs are done -- now to get back to wrapping the tiers

I decided to just go with all of the tiers matching each other -- I have quite a bit of this flat yarn that I use for Tookies finger puppets and frankly, quite a bit of it is unusable for the puppet "hair" because it is creased.  I was able to flatten it out over the wire tiers and then anchor it with more of the olive wire...I had just enough!

Bootsy approves

Now the tough part -- figuring out how to suspend the spikey creature within the tomato cage.  I have a few ideas but I don't want to cover up too much of the creature.  It will come to me...I'm taking the night off!

365/2013 - Day 60

ai-eeeeeeeeeeee -- shark!

Well, snow shark that is.  And a snow dog (which is starting to look like a possible snow cat to me).  They are both at the Northville Art House.

And while I was at the Art House putting new art into Greeny, Karen came by to purchase some early xmas presents -- 10 Tookies finger puppets from the Art-o-mat machine!  Thank YOU, Karen! 

Also -- as if that wasn't enough -- Carla presented me with the companion piece to the woodburned giraffe I purchased from her a while back.  We traded some art -- I gave her a dog girl collage and she gave me this woodburned wader -- thanks, Carla!  (I don't know if it is a crane, egret, ibis...)

Tonight I resumed work on the first tier of the tomato cage display thing for the spikey creature.  The larger balls need another coat of paint and some varnish...they also need to be glued onto the wire pokey parts.

I am not sure if I will continue the wrapping with more of the yarn or if I will make each tier slightly different.  I have plenty of the wooden beads and wire left.

But I also have a small bin of beautiful ribbons that I have never used yet.  I am thinking I may try to incorporate some of them and still do the wire/beads part.

I don't know yet.

365/2013 - Day 59

I need just one more thing for the upcoming show

I need a way to display the stuffed spikey creature.  I think I figured it out -- I will use a tomato cage -- but I need to embellish (or at least decorate) it.  I have several ideas in mind but wrapping the wires with the tape-style yarn that I use for the "hair" on Tookies finger puppets is the first step.

I already have quite a stockpile of the yarn and because it is variegated, I won't need to try to create a "random" look...the yarn is doing it all by itself...yay.

whoa -- this is a LOT more work than I realized!

I am not even going to tell you how long it took to wrap just the first tier 

I think that the yarn will soften the look of the tomato cage's wire.  I like it but I definitely want/need to do more to it besides simply covering up ALL of the wire.