Filed under: Animation, Favorites, Music, Painting, Process, time lapse by ramune

Octave Violin from Ramune on Vimeo.

I was recently asked to paint a violin for the Fairfax Symphony Orchestra‘s silent auction, which followed a performance featuring cellist, Julie Albers. They asked a number of local women artists and I was more than happy to take a lonely violin and make a project out of it. When I arrived at their offices to pick up my violin, I had a choice between one without strings and a crack in it and one that was in decent shape and had two strings. I chose the latter, although looking back on it I probably could have made good use of that crack.

The first thing I thought before I had the violin in my hands was that I would strip it, stain it (either green or red) and then paint something in black acrylic. I am definitely much more comfortable using a pen than I am using paints (I love the control and clean lines when I draw with a pen), but I was looking forward to the challenge and the chance to bring out my paints again. I don’t know where they came from, but I think my acrylics multiplied since the last time I opened that bag (there are at least four large tubes of white paint in there).

Initially when I was thinking about designs, I imagined something using my bubbley tentacles, and then since octopi have been on my mind lately it seemed to be the natural progression. The title “octave” came after I was done painting and needed something more than just “Untitled”. I thought of naming it the obvious “octopus” or “octopod” and then “octave” hit me like some cheesy pun and I had to do it.

Below are more photos from the process I went through to paint the violin. It definitely took longer than I thought since there was so much waiting time between stripping, drying, sanding, conditioning, staining, painting and then varnishing. Along with the photos of the process I also set up my camera and created a time lapse video of me painting the octopus on the violin. You can even follow the link to the vimeo page and watch it in HD (larger than life for your massive screen). Enjoy!

Whether or not these violins are meant to be played, I am not sure, but I went ahead and bought new violin strings so that it can be played . . . although I will mention that the sound post popped out of the violin when I was sanding it. I haven’t played violin since I was a wee one, but I imagine that is somewhat important.

Side Note: Unfortunately I am out of town this weekend, so I wasn’t able to make it to the performance and auction last night, but I am looking forward to seeing photos from the event and all the other violins.

Oops, no photos from the staining phase . . .

Filed under: Card, Commission, Design, Favorites, Holiday by ramune

Ultrafox – Ice Skating

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Ultrafox – Ice Skating (Glacier Mix)

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Firstly, I posted two versions of the same song because I still can’t decide which version I like better, so why not share them both . . . Secondly, I present to you this week’s project. I wish I could say these are the cards I am mailing out this year, but they are not. They are actually an office holiday card I was asked to design. They were pretty specific about what they wanted (lone tree in a snowy field with the company logo as an ornament hanging off the tree), and I was pretty excited to do it since this is something I’ve had in my mind for a a few years. They chose the top version (all white) over the version with the black trees. Normally I don’t post “work” stuff, but I like how this came out, and it’s a look I want to continue to develop. Enjoy!

Filed under: Commission, Enamel, Favorites, Jewelry, Process by ramune

Big Lazy – Just Plain Scared

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After spending seven straight hours in the studio last Tuesday night, I was able to finish the art nouveau inspired cloisonné pendant! I am pretty excited that 1. nothing horrible went wrong in those seven hours (trying to stay calm and not rushing helped) and 2. I am really happy with the piece . . . so much so that I don’t really want to sell it.

To see the previous posts showing the original sketches and the first steps, check these links:
105 . . . Two Years and a Commission
107 . . . Cloisonné Commission II

Below I have compiled some photos of the process. I didn’t take photos of every single step because that would be incredibly boring (since it involves building up thin layer after thin layer after thin layer . . .), but I tried to show a variety of steps.

1. Put the thinner inside wires in place. These were a challenge and took up a good bit of time.
2. First layers of yellow and green (post firing)
3. Adding some gray to the edges (pre firing)

4. In the kiln.
(Side note: The previous week I had aluminum on the trivet in the kiln and managed to push it so it touched those red hot 1500 degree coils and I got a serious zap through my entire body. Lesson learned.)
5. I love the way enamels look right when they come out of the kiln, too bad they don’t stay that way. (post firing)
6. I made little paper patterns to protect my yellow areas from the gray enamel (pre firing)

7. After removing the paper patterns (pre firing)
8. Added in the pink/yellow for the flower. At this point I liked my colors as they were. (post firing)
9. Once I got the coloring I wanted (8), I filled in the empty spaces with N4, a clear enamel (pre firing)
10. After putting on enough N4 to build up the enamel to the top of the wires, I stoned the hell out of this piece. Here it is ready to go in for it’s last firing (pre firing)

My messy space

Filed under: Doodle, Enamel, Favorites, Jewelry, Process by ramune

Song of the Week: Benoît Pioulard – Loupe

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I just realized that my two year anniversary is coming up in two weeks and well, that means I should be at around project 103 by now. Oops. Where did those missing 13 go? Spooky. Since I have two weeks to catch up, I am going to post a project every day until October 31st. I am not promising any Michelangelo here, and my commentary might be lacking, but I will do it . . . dammit.

In the meantime, here is something I am very excited about . . . PNP paper! I have been taking the same enamels class for two years now and (for the most part) do my own thing. Occasionally I ask my teacher for help/advice, but there hasn’t been much new in the way of techniques learned. A few weeks ago however, she taught the new students how to use PNP transfer paper. With PNP you can photocopy any black/white design to the paper and then transfer that to copper as a resist. We did not have great luck with PNP when we tried it two years ago, but after experimenting with some different techniques, my teacher figured out a way to successfully get the paper to adhere to the copper. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the details transferred and how well the PNP held up in the etch.

Below are some photos of the PNP paper after I had successfully transferred my designs. In some areas the PNP didn’t transfer, but it was pretty easy to touch up using asphaltum. It isn’t a huge deal, but I forgot to reverse the images before printing, so all of my designs are flipped. It bothers me slightly that everything is facing the wrong way. At least I didn’t have any words anywhere.

I was hoping to post some nice photos of my shiny new etched pieces, but I am having a hard time getting the PNP paper off of the copper. I thought I could use mineral spirits, since that’s what I use to take off asphaltum, but I think I need to use paint thinner. Instead of buying a large container for a few uses, I will just wait for class this week.

You may recognize this fish and this guy.

Luckily the touch-ups I had to do with the asphaltum were pretty minor. Here are the copper discs ready to be etched. The piece on the top right is my halftone test. It was also the first one I placed on the PNP, so the pattern is off a bit. My next mission is to find some photos I’ve taken that might work well on copper and transfer those.

Here are my original designs.

Filed under: Design, Favorites, Friends, Paper by ramune

A few weeks ago my friend Vaiva and I dropped by Philly for a night to visit our friend Rasa and help with any wedding planning/decompressing/relaxing. One of the things we did that day was help come up with themes for the tables at the wedding. After a few duds it was decided that the theme would be different kinds of leaves. I volunteered to make the leaves and the seating chart for the wedding and I am pretty excited with the results. At one point I sent Rasa a text message with a photo of the first two leaves I had cut and she asked if they were real.

The green leaves were for all of the guest tables and the gold leaves were for the head table.

In total I hand cut 39 leaves out of card stock. It was fun and completely worth it even if my wrist was screaming a few times during those spiky leaves.

Two of my favorite (and most difficult/time consuming) leaves to cut were the sycamore and chestnut leaves. Please excuse the distracting blur used to protect the innocent (and not so innocent).

I am not sure who suggested it or if it was a joke at first, but the leaf chosen for the head table was an Ent leaf. This posed a challenge because there is no one Ent leaf (well, there is no such thing as an Ent either . . . or is there?) and I didn’t want to make it too cheesy.

Len the Oak Ent

Rasa the Maple Ent

The seating charts were posted on a column in front of the garage (the reception was in a tent in the driveway and the food was served from a nicely disguised garage).

The centerpieces came together quite well I think. The wood bases were made by Aistis (a fellow friend of the family) and the Krupnikas (Lithuanian honey liquor in the little bottles) was made by my friends Vaiva and Aleksa earlier this summer when we were in Philly.

Since I was in the wedding I didn’t take too many photos, but I managed to get a few here and there. It all came together so well considering all the stress involved. Rasa planned the entire wedding herself with help from family and friends. The ceremony and reception were both at her parents’ house and her catering company catered the event. Those of us who were there before the wedding, from the locals to those who came a week to a few hours before, all helped out in the kitchen, setting up and doing pretty much anything else that needed to get done. All in all, it was a fantastic time!

Filed under: Doodle, Favorites by ramune

This guy materialized in front of me while sitting in my car last week. He’s a little shy and gets nervous when people look him in the eye, which is why he has all those decoy eyes . . . to throw you off. He doesn’t have a name yet but I think maybe he would not be as freaked out by you if you gave him one. Not Mr. Bubbles though . . . that just isn’t his style.

“Why were you drawing in your car last week?” you ask . . . well here is that story. A couple weeks ago I drove up to NYC for a change of scenery and to visit my sister and some friends. I could probably have taken the Bolt Bus up as I do quite often, but for a number of reasons I decided to drive instead. Although driving has it’s advantages, there is also the (necessary) annoyance of biweekly alternate side street cleaning (although I really think weekly would be fine). On my sister’s street I can either move my car every Monday/Thursday or every Tuesday/Friday depending on the side of the street. I opted for the Tuesday/Friday special. On each of those days during my visit I would go down to my car at 11am, sit with my windows open and wait until the street cleaners came through, at which point I would drive around and come back to roughly the same spot and then continue to sit until 12:30pm. Cops would come and go, but as long as I was sitting in my car I would not get a ticket. At first I dreaded these 1.5 hour disturbances in my day, but then I came to embrace them as forced moments away from my computer (I did try to bring my lappy 486 into the car and get wifi, but had no luck). Sometimes I would knit, sometimes I would draw and sometimes I would try to get some non-internet work done on my laptop. My friend above was one of these creations that kept me company.

The funny thing about all this is that I am not the only one doing the biweekly car rotations. There are loads of people all over NYC taking their lunch breaks in their cars twice a week while the cleaners clean their streets. What blows my mind is that most of them just sit and do nothing for those 1.5 hours. Please excuse the very brief and poor quality video I took with my cellular device, but you can kind of see the silliness of the situation. Cars sit on the street, then the cleaner comes up behind them and they basically just drive around in a circle and pull right back into their spots. I had to cut the video short because it was my turn to turn like the rest but I think you get the idea. I would really love to get an aerial video of the whole thing but that might have to wait.

Filed under: Costumes, Favorites, Mask, Papier-mâché by ramune

In case you couldn’t tell, I like to make stuff. I also like to dress up, so when my friend Ashley told me about the Green Masquerade Ball at the House of Sweden back in May I could not resist. From what I understood the “green” theme was meant to be more about sustainability and the environment and not just the color green. Ashley and I discussed a bundle of options and then decided that she would go as solar power and I would go as wind energy. I didn’t have enough time to come up with an entire costume, and since it was a masquerade ball I figured I would be “green” and make it out of papier-mâché (newspaper, water, flour). The Personals section of the newspaper works particularly well. I can’t remember when I last made anything out of papier-mâché but I am pretty sure it was sometime in elementary school. I thoroughly enjoyed getting my hands all goopy with flour paste.

The Green Masquerade Ball was fun, but I was quite disappointed in the lack of creativity and relevant masks/costumes. Some people just wore something green and others didn’t even wear that. I am not sure if it’s a DC thing, but don’t bother showing up to a costume party if you are “too cool” to at least half-assedly put some effort in. There are plenty of other places you can go if you don’t want to dress up.

Enough of my rant . . . it was a good time and although you can’t tell from the photo at the top, the wind turbine on my mask actually spins when you blow/push on it.

Filed under: Artomatic, Favorites, Painting, Process by ramune

Last year my friend David exhibited a bunch of his photos at Artomatic and after walking through only three of the nine floors, I decided I had to sign up this year (and make sure to see all of the art on all nine floors).

I knew it would be a lot of work, but the reality of it hit hard the other weekend. The fact that the location is right next to the National’s stadium, and they have home games almost every day until the Artomatic opening makes it particularly frustrating to drive there and find parking ($25 on game days!). Taking the metro with a ladder and a bag full of painting supplies is also less than fun, but I did what I had to do and drove to the nearest metro (where I could find free parking) and then metroed the rest of the way.

Day 1: Put primer on walls
I thought I had everything I needed with me, but did not take into account the massive pits in the walls that would require filling. I could probably have left them alone and no one would have noticed, but I am a bit of a perfectionist and want my wall to be defect-free. I called my mother to look up the nearest hardware store (I’m sure if I had an iPhone there would be an app for that) and tried to catch a cab but only had $3 cash (damn that $2 melted Reeses I bought from a street vendor). After standing on a corner not knowing what to do, I went to the CVS, bought a bag of chips and got cash back and tried to find another cab. Unfortunately there were no cabs to be found, so I gave up and took the metro back to my car and drove to the hardware store. Wood filler was purchased, I made my way back to my exhibit space, had a therapeutic session filling holes in the panels and then got to priming.

I thought all was going well, but silly me believed the man at Home Depot who told me that a quart of paint was enough for two coats of primer on a 12′x8′ wall. It wasn’t even enough for one full coat . . . as you can see in the photo below. I painted what I could, packed up and left. This was a silly mistake for me to make because I should know better. My work study job for three years of college was working at the Pratt galleries and I spent a lot of time filling holes and painting walls. I just didn’t think to question the guy when he said it would be enough.

Day 2: Finished priming the wall!

Day 3: Choose paint color and paint two coats
I toiled and troubled over what color to paint my wall (I created several Illustrator mock-ups with a variety of color options and layouts), and eventually decided on a Valspar granite textured paint from Lowes. It glitters . . . hopefully not obnoxiously so, but I think it adds a little something. I have never painted any kind of textured paint, so that was an interesting learning process. I had to buy a fluffier roller, roll the first coat and then hand-brush Xs for the second coat. Side Note: There is no way to paint that kind of stuff cleanly. It sprayed all over my arms, face and into my eyes (hopefully I won’t go blind before Artomatic). I am not sure how I did it, but somehow I took a gallon of paint meant to cover 120 square feet and made it cover over 192 square feet. I haven’t seen it completely dry yet, but I sure hope it looks good. This is how it looked when I left it this past Saturday.

Now that painting is all done, I have to get my photos printed, finish two enamels, buy mat boards, frame the photos, frame the enamels, install all of that, install lights and a table with guestbook (that my awesomely talented sister is making for me) and postcards (that are being printed now) and maybe other treats . . . then I am done! Whew . . . lots left to do, but most of the manual labor is done.

That, my friends, it what has been keeping me busy and away from updating this here blog. I will try to be better about it, but most of my “creativeness” has been spent on this exhibit.

Filed under: Favorites, Photography, Urbex by ramune

Abandoned buildings are my “new” favorite thing. I’ve always been fascinated with urban decay and have wanted to explore abandoned places, but until recently I had not really sought them out. This past Monday while I was in NYC (seems to be a bimonthly visit now), my sister and I took a wee road trip outside of the city to find this lovely decaying power plant. Unfortunately it was raining and the place was in a pretty sketchy area. It’s funny how a rainy overcast day in a sketchy part of town can make you a bit hesitant to enter a creepy decaying building. It was probably the smarter thing to do, but I would like to go back sometime and explore some more. Until then, here are some photos from the outside, and as usual more photos from this trip and any future trips to abandoned places around New York are here.

Somewhat disturbing graffiti . . . I am going to imagine it’s just someone stabbing marshmallows to roast over a fire.

Filed under: Favorites, Photography, Urbex by ramune

This Valentine’s Day was the best ever, and it wasn’t for any romantic reason either. My friend Maya and I drove out to an abandoned mental institution (dream come true) and explored two of the numerous buildings in the complex. I found the place because one of my Flickr contacts had been there the previous weekend and had taken some really great shots and was kind enough to give me some tips on how to find it. When we arrived it was so much more amazing than I could have imagined. I thought maybe there would be a few buildings, but there were more than I can even remember. I have already decided that I am going to make a map of the complex, number the buildings and jot down notes on what’s in each one so that I can remember which ones I have been in and which ones are worth going back to. Believe you me . . . I will be going back there a number of times, it is my new playground.

While we were there we ran into another photographer who told us a bit of history about the place. The place was supposedly started in the 1920s as an institution for the mentally retarded and was finally closed down in 1991. There is not much information online about it, but it appears that it had a pretty sordid past full of abuse and experimentation. I hope my excitement about the asylum does not come off as callus, as I can’t even imagine the horrors that people must have suffered in institutions like this, but I feel so lucky to be able to explore this rusty and undoubtedly asbestos-filled complex that has so much history just lying all over the place. It’s really like something out of a film, but I guess what they say is true, “Fact is stranger than fiction.”

These are just a few photos, more can be seen here, and I will continue to add them as I go back.

We didn’t make it into this building . . .

I could spend all day taking photos of peeling paint (lead anyone?)

I have a soft spot for red chairs and light blue/green backgrounds

I like the idea of nature reclaiming man-made buildings

Maya found this very appropriate Valentine sticker on a door. Creepy and appropriate!