Memorial Day Weekend & A New Art Project
Surprisingly, I didn't meet up with any of my friends over the long weekend, which would have undoubtedly made it an absolutely awesome few days. Instead, it was over all satisfactory, which is ok by me.
Saturday I went for a long (2 hours!) walk on the C&O Canal, then out to this very cool sit-down Peruvian restaurant. Most of the Peruvian places I've been to are almost fast-food-esque with rotisserie chicken and fried yucca. This restaurant also had fried yucca, thankfully, but it also had some fancy sounding dishes as well. Honestly, when I got my meal, I was a little less than impressed, but it would be worth going back one more time to try something different. If you ever happen into this place, note that the "tacu tacu" tastes pretty much like homemade re-fried mashed potatoes, which isn't necessarily bad, but also not something I'd want to drop $20 on.
After dinner, it was Bethesda for a movie. "What Happens in Vegas" really was kind of cute. I'd suggest waiting for the video, but it's a fun light-hearted film.
Sunday was a family day. We all gathered for my nieces' 4th birthday party. It was their 4th party that week, and coincidentally they also happen to have turned 4. :) My sister-in-law got my mom off the hook and told her she didn't have to make a cake, but, good grandmother that she is, she made a cake anyway. But not just any cake. She made the most amazing cake that a little girl, or in this case, two little girls could want. It was a barbie cake.
Somewhere my mom found the "doll cake" kit that I bought when I was really into cake decorating. It comes with a dome shaped pan that you bake the actual cake part in. The dome becomes the hoop skirt of the dress, and the kit also comes with this "barbie" that has a long plastic stick where her legs should be. When the dome cake is cooked and cooled, you stick the barbie-on-a-stick securely down into the cake until her waist is even with the top of the dome. Then the whole thing is iced--including the body of the doll to make the bodice of the dress. Voila! Instant barbie cake and crowd pleaser.
It actually tasted good too; lemon cake with home made butter cream icing.
We did the family hangout thing. My brothers mowed the lawn. I washed the dishes. We chatted and played with the kids. We ate a lot of things that are bad for you. It was great.
I was glad when everyone left though. It's always tiring when the family is over. Oddly, instead of crashing and zoning out with a book or a movie after they left, I was full of inspiration and energy.
My mom asked what we should do, and I exclaimed, "I know! how 'bout you come downstairs with me and help me find some lumber." She looked at me a little quizzically, but with little hesitation she replied, "ok."
I've had this idea for an art project kicking around in my head for a couple weeks now, and apparently Sunday was the day to do it. Or at least start it.
We actually found the type of lumber I had in mind. It was mixed in among particle board, outdoor lumber, and dismantled furniture, but I found it! Two really long 2.5 in wide boards of new light pine amongst all the cobwebs and dingy and dirty old stuff. I'm not sure who bought them, when, or for what, but the moment I saw them, they were mine.
I made short work of cutting the nice long lumber into little 2.5 in squares.
Ok, that's a lie. It took for-eh-verrrr, and I don't think there was an actual square in the bunch, just a whole pile of roughly squarish, rectangularish shapes with jagged edges. The band saw blade is meant to be flexible, which is great for cutting curves, but when trying to cut a straight line it can really work against you. I proceeded slowly and kept chanting, "it doesn't have to be perfect. it's your first try. just do your best." over and over again to myself in my head, which actually helped to keep me pretty calm, and by the end of the really long board, my cuts were, well, straighter than the first few, so that's good.
I was running on fumes, but I was eager to try out the belt sander, so I sanded 4 blocks before calling it a night. I was sure that the sander would help me to make the edges perrrrfectly straight and square...
"it doesn't have to be perfect. it's your first try. just do your best."
...
Despite my "rough" start (har har) I was actually in a pretty good mood about it all. I guess the mantra works because I really feel like it doesn't have to be perfect. That whatever it is, it is.
So today I was excited to get back to work, and I even woke up at 8:30am on my own!
Sanding is pretty hard work though, so I had to take a bunch of breaks. I wanted it to be fun and to be easy on myself, so any time my back started to cramp or my feet started to hurt, I'd go take the dogs out, or make myself a cup of coffee or play a few minutes of word games on the computer. I went to the grocery store and bought limes and smoked salmon and strawberry popcicles (made with real fruit!). I even went to a bagel bakery and bought delicious bagels.
I made bagels with cream cheese and lox for dinner. Delish.
By 9pm I'd finished all the sanding. By the last block I'd gotten really good, and actually could smooth out all the roughness and get the blocks pretty square. I had to revisit the first few sanded blocks, but I lined them all up with in the order in which they will be arranged in the final piece, and adjusted their widths with the sander where needed. They aren't totally "perfect" but they really are pretty good.
I also managed to print out the elements of the pattern that I'll be tracing onto the blocks. I even affixed them to the graphite transfer paper with double sided tape. The motif on each block will be slightly different from all the other blocks. The overall effect should be quite neat.
At that point I realized I was getting a little ahead of myself though. I needed to figure out how I'm actually going to put the pattern on the blocks. Painting? Stain? Carving? Wood burning? I'm still not sure, but I tried a few different washes of white on a few test blocks. I think one of the test blocks will be the background color if it looks the way I think and hope it will. I'm leaving the test blocks to dry overnight, and I'll decide what I want to do tomorrow and continue with the project.
So yeah, an overall satisfying, and fairly productive weekend.
Saturday I went for a long (2 hours!) walk on the C&O Canal, then out to this very cool sit-down Peruvian restaurant. Most of the Peruvian places I've been to are almost fast-food-esque with rotisserie chicken and fried yucca. This restaurant also had fried yucca, thankfully, but it also had some fancy sounding dishes as well. Honestly, when I got my meal, I was a little less than impressed, but it would be worth going back one more time to try something different. If you ever happen into this place, note that the "tacu tacu" tastes pretty much like homemade re-fried mashed potatoes, which isn't necessarily bad, but also not something I'd want to drop $20 on.
After dinner, it was Bethesda for a movie. "What Happens in Vegas" really was kind of cute. I'd suggest waiting for the video, but it's a fun light-hearted film.
Sunday was a family day. We all gathered for my nieces' 4th birthday party. It was their 4th party that week, and coincidentally they also happen to have turned 4. :) My sister-in-law got my mom off the hook and told her she didn't have to make a cake, but, good grandmother that she is, she made a cake anyway. But not just any cake. She made the most amazing cake that a little girl, or in this case, two little girls could want. It was a barbie cake.
Somewhere my mom found the "doll cake" kit that I bought when I was really into cake decorating. It comes with a dome shaped pan that you bake the actual cake part in. The dome becomes the hoop skirt of the dress, and the kit also comes with this "barbie" that has a long plastic stick where her legs should be. When the dome cake is cooked and cooled, you stick the barbie-on-a-stick securely down into the cake until her waist is even with the top of the dome. Then the whole thing is iced--including the body of the doll to make the bodice of the dress. Voila! Instant barbie cake and crowd pleaser.
It actually tasted good too; lemon cake with home made butter cream icing.
We did the family hangout thing. My brothers mowed the lawn. I washed the dishes. We chatted and played with the kids. We ate a lot of things that are bad for you. It was great.
I was glad when everyone left though. It's always tiring when the family is over. Oddly, instead of crashing and zoning out with a book or a movie after they left, I was full of inspiration and energy.
My mom asked what we should do, and I exclaimed, "I know! how 'bout you come downstairs with me and help me find some lumber." She looked at me a little quizzically, but with little hesitation she replied, "ok."
I've had this idea for an art project kicking around in my head for a couple weeks now, and apparently Sunday was the day to do it. Or at least start it.
We actually found the type of lumber I had in mind. It was mixed in among particle board, outdoor lumber, and dismantled furniture, but I found it! Two really long 2.5 in wide boards of new light pine amongst all the cobwebs and dingy and dirty old stuff. I'm not sure who bought them, when, or for what, but the moment I saw them, they were mine.
I made short work of cutting the nice long lumber into little 2.5 in squares.
Ok, that's a lie. It took for-eh-verrrr, and I don't think there was an actual square in the bunch, just a whole pile of roughly squarish, rectangularish shapes with jagged edges. The band saw blade is meant to be flexible, which is great for cutting curves, but when trying to cut a straight line it can really work against you. I proceeded slowly and kept chanting, "it doesn't have to be perfect. it's your first try. just do your best." over and over again to myself in my head, which actually helped to keep me pretty calm, and by the end of the really long board, my cuts were, well, straighter than the first few, so that's good.
I was running on fumes, but I was eager to try out the belt sander, so I sanded 4 blocks before calling it a night. I was sure that the sander would help me to make the edges perrrrfectly straight and square...
"it doesn't have to be perfect. it's your first try. just do your best."
...
Despite my "rough" start (har har) I was actually in a pretty good mood about it all. I guess the mantra works because I really feel like it doesn't have to be perfect. That whatever it is, it is.
So today I was excited to get back to work, and I even woke up at 8:30am on my own!
Sanding is pretty hard work though, so I had to take a bunch of breaks. I wanted it to be fun and to be easy on myself, so any time my back started to cramp or my feet started to hurt, I'd go take the dogs out, or make myself a cup of coffee or play a few minutes of word games on the computer. I went to the grocery store and bought limes and smoked salmon and strawberry popcicles (made with real fruit!). I even went to a bagel bakery and bought delicious bagels.
I made bagels with cream cheese and lox for dinner. Delish.
By 9pm I'd finished all the sanding. By the last block I'd gotten really good, and actually could smooth out all the roughness and get the blocks pretty square. I had to revisit the first few sanded blocks, but I lined them all up with in the order in which they will be arranged in the final piece, and adjusted their widths with the sander where needed. They aren't totally "perfect" but they really are pretty good.
I also managed to print out the elements of the pattern that I'll be tracing onto the blocks. I even affixed them to the graphite transfer paper with double sided tape. The motif on each block will be slightly different from all the other blocks. The overall effect should be quite neat.
At that point I realized I was getting a little ahead of myself though. I needed to figure out how I'm actually going to put the pattern on the blocks. Painting? Stain? Carving? Wood burning? I'm still not sure, but I tried a few different washes of white on a few test blocks. I think one of the test blocks will be the background color if it looks the way I think and hope it will. I'm leaving the test blocks to dry overnight, and I'll decide what I want to do tomorrow and continue with the project.
So yeah, an overall satisfying, and fairly productive weekend.