hey, y’all! seeing your posts about wetting paper to stretch for a WC surface…
i use heavy, uncoated and dampened “cardstock” (a term that means squat to me, btw) along the lines of 350 to 500 gsm (that’s grams per square meter - a much better differentiator of paper weight and thereby thickness) for my etchings. these prints hang on a line in my shop and will definitely warp as both paper and ink dry.
once dry, they get slipsheets between each and go into a heavy pressing to flatten them back out.
have any of you watercolorists ever used a watercolor block of paper? i believe Dan Smith or Dick Blick carries the most popular Strathmore brand. these are tight, flat, thick “cardstock” (ugh! that word again!) that has been padded on all four sides in a stack. it is thick enough that it would not bleed through from one sheet to the next below, so long as you are not slopping super wet over super wet washes, etc.
you can also make your own by padding a stack of pretrimmed stock one edge at a time, under weight:
using a corner jig - any right angle apparatus that is tall enough to accept the stack and a cover board of same size as stack.
place paper and jog tightly to the corner and continue until you have a block the desired thickness - 10, 20, or more sheets
cover with cover board and place heavy weights on top or use c-clamps or pony clamps to squeeze the exposed edge tightly
apply Elmer’s glue (or equivalent) to exposed edge using an adequate brush
allow to dry, unclamp/weight and turn to expose new, unglued edge
repeat steps 1 - 5 until all four edges are glued into a block.
do your thing…
allow your creation to dry on the block before using a razor blade or xacto to separate and thar ya go!
they don’t call me Papiermeister for nuthin’ y’all
that one was Post Office Chicken an illustration plate to my collected prints of wild and feral chickens of the island. pollo diabólico they all are, but you may be confusing with my actual nemesis, El Gallo Apocalypto.
good eye, señor!
Boy every update i have for the wood shelves i have seems to always be negative, and i hate to be that guy. But i worked up the energy to finally apply the oil coating on it, i mixed the two small bottles of Part A and 1/3rd of the Part B which helps it cure faster and poured it onto my boards. Started spreading it and quickly realized the amount of oil i had was not enough to cover both sides.
I spread what i could onto one side of both boards, drove to get more oil and finished coating everything but now i’m worried that when it all cures it might look uneven or weird because i had stopped and started with the oil at different times but we’ll see. Being optimistic for now and will need to wait a week or two for the curing to happen
In the meantime me and my SO are slowly working on fixing up the front yard landscaping. Got a lot of weeds to kill.
Edit: Quick update, i won’t know for certain until i get a thorough look at the shelves i prepped but i took a quick look this morning and they seem to be curing fine. As impatient as i am i will do my best to wait at least a week before i try to get closer took, but i’m hopeful that the oil coating is turning out fairly even.
Next step would be to find the studs, and install the heavy duty brackets i got. I have a laser guide so i’m like 80% sure i can do this right when the time comes
Ok I got a tangible update on my shelves I’ve been working on. The curing went well! I think I could’ve done a better job but it’s still what I wanted so no complaints
Putting up the brackets on the wall was a pain in the ass. The studs were incredibly difficult to screw into and had to pre-drill to get it to work. Still need to put up the second shelf but I was eager to at least put up my cat’s final remains on the one that I did install. Need to figure out what else will go up on it, and will need to touch up the paint on the wall.
I seem to have forgotten to take a finished picture. too bad, they came out better than the first set.
then we redid their laundry room and made a little cabinet in a bathroom.
they had a similar setup but the shelves were too little for their folded bedding and towels. the old bench cabinet didn’t have cubbies and had a hinged top that opened upwards; pretty awkward.
the client wanted the cubbies to have a shelf for shoes and then the right one goes all the way back and will fit their laundry basket.
then we raised the washer and dryer so they didn’t have to bend down for the front loaders. the cabinets above were existing but they had to be raised also.
I have my shelves fully up as of last night. Been slowly putting up some of my figures I haven’t had any space for. I still have some room so hoping to fill it out more as i organize my stuff, but for now i’m fairly pleased with the set up
Edit: Been brainstorming how to make the shelves a bit more visually appealing beyond putting up some figures and stuff on it. To tie it all together i was thinking of making a fairly basic diorama, maybe silhouettes of trees or something similar that i can put behind the shelves. I’ll mull it over and see where i end up
Very nice looking I had considered adding lighting to the shelves, i have some ideas but it’s good to know that i could route wires to where i need through the wall.
Decided to try my hand at the oil pastels for this humane society fundraiser thing. We get a photo of someone’s pet, and they donate $25 to the shelter and get a portrait in return. Might be from a little kid of a professional artist or someone in between.
I’m not exceedingly happy with my portrait, but it feels like a good first effort with a new medium. If anyone has tips for oil pastels in general, I’m listening!
The photo:
The drawing as-is can be worked further thankfully. I think it’s got a pretty good start, the blocks of color and shapes look right. Pastels are a bit more out of my comfort zone and i really haven’t worked in that medium much but from my amateurish and vague memory: You can keep working it and building up layers of color, you could use a spray to seal the existing drawing and colors and it’ll give you a good textured surface to continue building up details. Details you’d want are the subtle highlights of the black fur. It’ll give it some dimensionality, you can use some colored pencils or pastel pencils to give you a finer control if you haven’t using them already.
But like i mentioned above this isn’t my preferred medium so curious if someone has more experience and can give better advice. If anything i could look around online for some how-to’s and see which one looks like it’d be most helpful to you.
I wasn’t saying the drawing was bad, i meant that if you wanted to add more details and work it further it’s at a good place where that can easily be done
No, it’s okay. I wish it didn’t look so goofy, but from working with watercolors I’m trying not to “overwork” it. Seems I need to get over that for this new medium.
It’s a great tip to work on the shading of the black fur.
I had considered adding lighting to the shelves, i have some ideas but it’s good to know that i could route wires to where i need through the wall.
