Sad days

This is what I've been making.

Smartass needlepoint

Beware! So this was my first time Bargello style stitching. The entire piece is my own design. Here are the before and after. It's my new shop policy. 

 

Five by five

My latest self designed needlepoint. Because I love Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Another Monday another stab at the commission piece

Here we are, my day off so it's time to paint.

I'm trying to move away from the wormy color, introducing more green and ultimately bring the piece lighter. I'm also trying to incorporate more movement by using a paintbrush dipped in water amd the manner that I use my roller.

Each step gradualy builds up the paint.

Here you can see the painting panel onto which I nailed my canvas.

As always, it has to get hideous to get better. Barf. This stage looks like barf tho.

Yeah... Still not liking this much at all. I revisited the Oriental carpet that was the inspiration, and I think my colors are off. That's why I mixed up the orangey peach tone that you see above. Going to wait for this layer to dry. Then attack it again.

We're getting there but I would like to move away from the mauve.

This is getting pretty sticky to work on. Check out the closeup of the paint below, it's as viscous as taffy.

Gah! Lost my draft

Shoot. Just imagine a lot of insight into the creative mind. Bleh!

This is the commission piece for Maureen.

That's not it. Double shoot! I lost most of my work in progress pics, too!

There's this.

Then there's this... Dinner is the same palette as the comish.

Today is just not my day. Backwards progress.

Recent Needlepoints

Instead of the commission I should be working, instead of the recent draft of my story, instead of making my bed... I've been needlepointing. 

The purple piece is a canvas I picked up from my favorite favorite shop Golden Gate Needlepoint on Sacramento Street at Presidio. Dangerously close to my own shop. Talking isn't doing, good words to live by.

The pink gun I traced onto blank canvas and added the cursive L'oreal slogan. Je le vaux bien! I find this funny because instead of translating to "because I'm worth it" it really more accurately translates to "because I deserve it." Ha! Because I fucking deserve it!!! Plus a gun. 

This is beginners's art. Gun + words = profound meaning. So deep, man. Or it's just aesthetics. I admit I did feel weird stitching a gun, especially since I was working on it at my shop and customers kept asking to look at it. I promise I won't go postal! Trust me, stitched guns are the only guns that I support. But I'm out of thread and must wait to finish the piece. Now that is probably something that I deserve. 

Scavenger

 Why hello free canvases on the sidewalk! Let me not pass on such a fine opportunity for free materials. And thank you Sarah Blake '06 for discarding your work. Maybe many years in the future someone will X-Ray this canvas and find your crane. 

For those who are curious, I pulled the pre stretched canvas from it's frame and nailed it to one of my boards so I can work it with my rollers without getting an funny outlines from the canvas bars.

Here we go, trying something new.

I'm thinking about Maureen's oriental carpet here. 

We're doing a custom piece for her, this scavenged canvas is not necessarily it, but Maureen's carpet is my starting point colorwise.

This is a very different technique from my usual, right? I realized I needed some thick paint to cover the crane, so hello paintbrush application of your standard Utrecht brand bright white acrylic. Paintbrush and canvas? Hello classicism. I like how the wet paints are blending.