Painting

I’ve finished a couple of paintings this week.

This one I had been working on for awhile. I did the hexagons back in the summer and could never really figure out what to do what the rest of it. I know bee’s seem a little obvious but I had the idea to do something a little different. I thought about putting little monsters in each of the hexagons, or leaving it as a geometric abstract painting. I think I’m happy with the way the Bee’s turned out though.

The second one started out as a doodle that I did in class.

I think I want to add eyes to the little purple floaters in this one. I used modge podge to get the texture on the planet and then painted it with a purple wash. I’m thinking it might need something else. I’d like to put something around the monsters to suggest they are glowing? Or maybe the planet should be glowing? I’m not really sure how to do that unless I use the wash again? As much as I like this it’s got a long way to go.

Edited: January 6th, 2012

Calvin and Hobbes

Over the holidays I began a pretty ambitious embroidery project. I wanted a challenge but I may have pushed myself a bit too far. I decided to turn a Calvin and Hobbes comic into a pretty piece of stitching. I’m using a single strand of thread in order to get the letters precisely where I need them and I’m trying to stay true to the exact content. Although I’m tempted to cut out all the hard letters. Why do words need “S”’s? Here is a bit of a work in progress and the original inspiration.

Edited: January 4th, 2012

Forget Rest We Need Lumber

After a long drive home from the holidays, unpacking all of our gifts and packing all of our Christmas decorations all we wanted to do was sleep. But instead we got busy DIY-ing!

We were given an aquarium from Brian’s family but nothing to sit it on. We bought lumber and stain, and got busy.

We had to build something strong enough to hold 300 pounds! It needed to be 28″ deep and we wanted the middle to be pretty large so we could easily get into the aquarium when we need to clean or add fish. Brian designed the shelf and tried to make the book shelves on the bottom look like the rest of the furniture in our place. We added strength by putting boards in the back. The boards also keep our books from falling off the back of the shelf.

I love that we have little squares at the bottom. In about a day we had the shelf built and stained. After it dried we could add the aquarium.

We wanted a natural look so we bought real plants, real drift wood and real rock. We can start to add little fish in two weeks but until then we have been staring at the pretty plants and admiring all of our hard work.

Everything in the tank came from a great little fish store, Menagerie in Cabbage Town. We both agreed it was well worth the two hour walk for the amazing service. Nothing was pushed on us and the staff were really knowledgeable. Their website could use an update, but the store is worth a visit for any animal lover.

Edited: January 2nd, 2012