Bet The Farm barrel commission

Lana and I recently finished a project for Art by Commission, if you would like to see it, you can view it at Art by Commission. Our piece goes on display July 3 at Bet the Farm!

A bit of industrial design

Lana and I have had some bed issues here, the previous mattress was shot as was the box spring and cheap frame. The problem was the frame couldn't support the bed and everything sagged in the middle. After a bit of deliberation, we decided to build our own bed with a platform so a box spring wouldn't be required. We both studied the look of some modern beds and thought their designs and shapes were quite nice and the construction of them seemed easy to emulate. We made a little plan and headed to Home- Depot and got the supplies.
2 (2 x 8)
2 (2 x 12)
3 (2x 6)
brackets
plywood and wood screws

All in all it took and day to get together, we ran into a few problems but were fairly easy to fix. The main problem being that the jerk at home-depot who cut the wood for us was incompetent, our boards were not all perfect. It was important for us to not have any screws or nails of brackets visible, so everything for structure is contained in the bed. The only thing left I suppose is to stain/poly it. The little sawdust left on it makes us sneeze!

Note the delicious Ikea wastebasket (named Fniss)!

Bedside table. Bedtime stories...

Look, Ma, no metal fixings!

Around the area (my yard)

It was a muggy day, but beautiful, nonetheless. I wish the summers here were milder though... I have a feeling we're in for lots of heat this summer ...... ...

Garden part 2

Here are some details of the garden-- Onions (from seed), Lagerfeld roses (buds), Ingrid Bergman rose, and Evening Primrose.

Garden part 1

Brett and I have worked our butts off creating this new garden on the south side of the cottage. We did it over a couple of weekends with the help of a rented rototiller. We should be getting more tiki torches. That touch of corniness fits in perfectly here as far as the DIY attitude of this project was concerned....

Our delphinium will bloom soon and our foxglove later on will too. My begonia is doing well, even though I caught a bunny sampling it once. Also that purplish stuff 'Brachycome' behind the ferns is doing great. And because our soil isn't so great here (lots of clay), Nasturnium does very very well. I transplanted the ferns and well, hmm....

Some baby foxglove we've been growing from seed.... they bloom next year... Peonies, snapdragon and japanese iris... And potatoes! :D

Kewpie step 3

Our painting of the Kewpie mayo should be nearly completed by the end of the week. For now here is a sneak peek at some of the bottle rendering and text/graphics.

Whirly Pop whirling to completion

The whirly pop, a piece I feared may take longer then it did seemed to race to completion. Once all of the initial block-ins dried it was a matter of controlling transparent paint for the dark tones and semi-opaque tones for the lights. Overall the painting is about 95 percent done and once this layer dries we will tweak the last 5 percent. Despite our success it was still no easy task to render the 35 or so different color bands and the other 35 or so white bands that separate the colors.
P.S. - The final photo should be up this weekend.

Tea Cup

Last week Lana and I officially finished all painting on the teacup piece. In the end it will probably be the one that took the most work. Some of our techniques didn't work out as we imagined they would and complicated areas like the saucer had to be repainted twice. Over all we are both happy with the end result and most importantly we each learned a great deal about working on a large scale and painting in general. It still may need another coat of the feldspar green on the background, and it def. needs spray kammar varnish to unify the shiny surface. When the varnish dries we will photograph the 4' x 3' hulk and upload it, for now here is a detail shot.