The Great Cement Project of 2010

So here are Phase 2 and Phase 3 (and Phase 3.1, yes, revision was already necessary!) of the Great Cement Project of 2010. This is what it looked like in June, 2007; and on July 13, 2010. And here was Phase 1, from June 22, 2010.

And today, we have a seat made from a slab of sandstone I've had for ages, and those infamous water meter rings that I have had sitting around. Plus, a few years back, I got these cement plugs somewhere, and they finally got used too, as part of the reflexology path:



I'll have to see how well this pebble path lasts. I don't think I did the best job with it. It might just fall apart on the first freezing winter we get.





So this was Phase 3.1. Despite my careful reading of the cement instructions, I didn't have quite enough cement, and so it got a bit thin when I got to this part. The next morning, I was full of regrets, of course. After careful consideration, I decided the next course of action would be to chisel out the pebbles, put down more cement on top and then put the pebbles back in.

Well, like hell I was going to chisel the pebbles out. I tried. Nothing budged.

So Plan B was simply to leave everything in place, pour more cement on top and put in yet more pebbles. So now the whole thing is kind of bulging out in the middle:



A detail shot:



So no more cement for 2010. I've returned the neighbor's paver mold. And now there's a open spot in the garage for me to unpack the bike...The Great Bike Project for 2010 shall now commence.

Collins Gallery exhibit

This was an exhibit that fell into my lap 3 weeks ago. The original Collins Gallery exhibit for the time slot fell through; then the substitute exhibit fell through too. At which point, I was at the right place at the right time, and got the opportunity to put together this show.

We installed yesterday, and it all went very, very smoothly. I am very happy with how well it worked out, given that there was so little time to put it together. So in short—

I was asked if Portland Open Studios would take the slot. The board approved to do it that very evening. It took another week before we all agreed how to select the 11 artists (we ended up w/ first come first serve) and to send out the call. The slots filled in 24 hours and we had 10 different mediums covered. I ended up slipping in a 12th artist as well.

Then it was a matter of chasing down 12 artists for their statements and titles (which always turns out to be more time consuming than one might think), making a postcard graphic, putting together tour guide sales for the Friends of the Library store, scheduling installation times for everyone, writing up a contract for the artists and getting our PR guru to write up some PR materials. And installation.

We managed to wrap up early too. But of course, I forgot to take pictures. So maybe next week.

One of a gazilion natural wonders of the day

And this one I noticed.

On my morning walk, I noticed two bees of different species, snuggled up together under the petal of a very pink rose. The rose is bright pink and very uniform in color, so anything stands out like a sore thumb. So these two bees were really noticeable. I walked up to take a look, and saw that there was a spider there, too.

Being a little slow on the uptake, I thought, hmm, what could've gotten 2 bees and a spider all interested...before it dawned on me that the spider had both bees in its grasp. A two fisted bee sucking, as it were.

By the time I made the round trip home to get the camera and got back to the scene of the crime, one of the bees had fallen down between petals and the spider had the other bee's head in its pinchers (you can click on the image to see a much larger view), and you can see a shadow of the other bee's body directly below:



And here's a shot of the spider:



Unfortunately, the lens is having some focus issues, besides the fact that I'm using a lens for a film back on a digital camera, so the image isn't so sharp. It will just have to do.

20th

Rocks & Wings, gouache on paper mounted on board. Yet to be sprayed w/ the GAC 500.

This one has had a long wait. Here's how it started, as a pour, on Feb, 19 this year:



Then I started working on it again on July 11:



Then over the last few days, it went through several phases, including one in which a mosquito made an appearance. But I quickly swatted it out. The rocks went from pink:



To blue:



To spotted & lined:



And finally to marbled and it stuck:

The pecking order

The black chicken is always the boldest, coming right up to me as I'm digging in the garden, waiting to grab something tasty.

So in this picture, you see the brown chicken & the b&w chicken having themselves a nice dust bath, the black chicken foraging. But before long, the black chicken would go over and join the other two, start pecking at them to make room for herself for a nice dust bath too, right in between the other two.

In the background, you see the progress of the cement path around the strawberry patch. Only did 200lb of cement today. Didn't want to over do it, I'm supposed to go to the weight room tonight. Since the path curves around a crop circle, the paver mold leaves gaps in between. I'll fill those at the end. See yesterday's entry on why there're bamboo poles all around the strawberry patch...

I win!

In the battle of Shu-Ju vs Chickens to see who shall get the strawberries, Shu-Ju has won Round One. (I should note that the Good Prince placed his money with the Chickens.)

Remember that bamboo those unfortunate college boys had to remove last year? Well, they sat in a pile in the backyard until today, when they found their purpose in life:



And I did not observe the chickens going into my strawberry patch today. They walked around it, they walked by it, but they didn't walk into it. And as a bonus, it even has a slight Asian flair to it.

And please note that the chickens are walking around in a rose petal strewn path...what luxury!

19th

Wet Spring, gouache on paper mounted on board

Again, have yet to spray it w/ the GAC 500.

Here's a shot from a little earlier:



And before that, see this entry.

Most of the 'spots' on the first layers got covered up; and then as a last step, I uncovered them by using a stiff damp brush to remove the layers on top, controlling how much of the top layers to remove and therefore, how much of the spot to reveal.

An almost perfect day

One fine spring day earlier this year (and needless to say, it was pretty wet), I was walking somewhere SE, and the sidewalks were just covered, I mean COVERED, in maple seed pods. Bright chartreuse over wet, dark, shiny cement sidewalks. I've been waiting to paint that ever since.

So after almost 3 weeks away from the studio, I've started 2 more of the 7x7 panels, two different types—a paperbark maple and a vine maple. I'm not finished, but here are a couple of progress shots of each.

First one, paperbark maple. I created the background a few months back with some gray and bright color spots. Today, I added the pods, first in ultramarine. The pods are about actual size...you can see a real pod on the left:



Then I layered a light green and a yellow on top. They kind of look like bugs:



Then the vine maple. Until I decided to paint them, I hadn't really paid attention to how different the different maple pods are. Not only in shape, but also in color and texture, and some are really tiny. So these are starting out the same as the paperbark maple, but there's a lot more red in these pods. The wings are also a lot thinner:



This is as far as I got today. They almost look like peas. I guess they're rather similar ideas:

Harness the power of the Chicken!

Still working on removing grass, but now I have 3 chickens helping me! Here's today's progress, and you can see the chickens resting in the hollow of the log after their long day's work!



A close-up...they're pooped from their hard work.



Here's a shot of approximately the same area from June, 2007. The grassy strip on the left is what I'm removing.

Always doing things the hard way

Yup, that's my motto.



I've been slowly removing the grass from our yard for the last 20 years. When we moved in, it was probably close to 7500 sqft of grass (lot - house - driveway - a rather uninteresting border of mugo pines and rhodies). I'm figuring that I'm down to about 250 sqft of grass now, about half was removed by hired guns, rest removed by myself. (Oh yeah, that chair, it's holding back the rugosa rose.)

So after these last two days of back-breaking labor, I've removed (by hand!), what, another 30sqft? I'll be putting down a path to go around the strawberry bed and the sedum bed. Another week of work, and I'll be ready to put down the path, which will be a combination of red bricks and cement pavers. It will be very pretty, you'll see.

I haven't done all of the grass-removal the stupid way, of course. If it's an area to be planted, then I've actually done it the smart way—a layer of newsprint and topped w/ mulch. But since this is to be a path, all the organic materials have to be removed, so here I am, with my shovel...

Haven't seen the robin parents for a couple of days, but I'm pretty sure the babies haven't fledged yet. I'm resisting the temptation to get out a ladder and peek. Maybe I just don't get to see the ones that survive, but I don't seem to be having very good luck here with those birds nests. Last year, I had a bushtit nest; mommy and daddy were busy, busy, busy, but then I never saw the fledglings either.

On other fronts

I've been getting the Portland Open Studios website ready for our 2010 tour. It's almost ready to upload now, with new artists, new sponsors, new supporters, new community partner, new scholarship recipients. I've also been interviewing and profiling artist, with 5 interviews in the can and 2 profiles completed. See here and here.