It’s funny how little, seemingly insignificant, things can just ruin your whole day. And it happens so quick. Last night I finished assembling the last of my series of frames. I still have to do staining and sanding and then staining again but that is a fairly simple. Staining is just a matter of patience. The garage is a little cold, which slows down the process a bit but it isn’t really an issue. I don’t even know what I’m going to do to start filling them. All was going along just fine until this morning. The last frame I assembled was a little twisted so I added some glue to the joints and set if off to the side last night. I put it out-of-the-way so it could just sit for a day or two and really dry. Low and behold my out-of-the-way was someone else’s right-in-the-way because the frame was knocked over and it fell from the...
Haven’t really done a breakdown of a project in a while and this was a fun, spur-of-the-moment project. It all started when my youngest got a little notebook. It was waste from a work project. We have to waste a few products when setting up for printing and sometimes I will grab one of these castoffs and give it to my kids, or even keep them for myself depending on the product. This had 3 or 4 of our client’s logo printed on it all in different overlapping positions. Nothing too big just really messy. She asked of I could make her a sticker of a heart to put over it. While I was putting together the weekly shopping list I started doing little sketches. The sketches became progressively more complex and I settled on a design and drawing. It was an interesting little stone heart. I decided to do a little more with it. I was going to clean it up and...
A few years ago I was walking around downtown Milwaukee checking out some galleries when I came across some of the most beautiful ceramics I have seen in a really long time. I love ceramic art. The medium is so versatile. When done well it has a life and presence that painting or other mediums cannot achieve. I was captivated by the artist’s work. I glanced at the placard to see the piece’s title and saw the artist’s name, Shannon Sullivan. Wait… I went to college with a Shannon who was a ceramicist. I even have one of her pieces in my office. I went home and did a little Googling to find out that it was indeed the same Shannon Sullivan. She was a great ceramicist in college but her work now is truely spectacular. Her work really captures the strength of ceramics. Her shapes are captivating and interesting, especially the way...
Ok, so this isn’t exactly a recipe, or maybe it is I haven’t quite decided. The point is I made pizza. I made it from scratch. My dad gave me a tabletop mixer for Christmas and the first thing I thought was “Pizza!” I made dough at Pizza Hut all through college. It was a pretty decent gig. I went in early in the morning, made dough and then left. Most mornings I was still drunk from the night before. Awe, college. Anyway, I started researching dough recipies but my wife’s co-worker gave us a really great recipe as well as some pizza sauce to get started. We also ordered a pizza stone that her co-worker recommended. I was really excited, yet nervous, about the process. I made the dough a few nights before and it went really smooth. The thing I was most worried about was the pizza stone. It doesn’t matter which pizza stone you look at, around 4%...
After a month of work I have finally completed it. Honestly, I enjoyed the process more than the final piece. I’m not focusing on that though. There are definitely parts of it that I like… I did think that this might be a good opportunity to try something a little different so I used some of my work’s equipment and made some prints, but not just ordinary prints… I printed them on wood. That actually added the little something that I felt the final drawing was missing. It adds a depth. After printing a few I was a little more excited about the final piece and I just couldn’t help myself. So I made an animation too… And that closes out this project. Now I am going to focus on the other two things I have going and maybe start a Gravity Falls series. Only time will...
