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: 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.