i made a painting

I made this painting for my mom. It commemorates the yearly party my aunt has on the last weekend of July. She has an archway covered in grapevines leading to the backyard where everyone gathers to hear my uncle play the accordion. The green around the edges of the painting are supposed to be grapevines and the couple are dancing to the accordion music played by the man on the right (you can tell it’s music because of the music notes! Didn’t you know that all accordion music in written in eighth notes?)

This was my first real attempt at an idea I’ve had for a while. I painted the background sky grass and trees and I guess you could say that I printed the people and the grapevines on top of that.

First I traced my design on a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil with a skewer. The design was raised on the opposite side of the foil. I used a skewer again to apply acrylic paint on top of the design and then pressed the foil onto the canvas. I transferred the people first, let them dry and then did the same with the grapevines.

This is what the foil looked like after the images had been printed.

I like the general effect this kind of printing gives and look forward to experimenting with paint viscosity, application tools and paper mediums. I also look forward to working on a slightly bigger canvas next time.

who does laundry on a saturday night?

one thing you won’t smell
when walking at five a.m.
a dryer venting

party in a bucket, a review

Shopping at Big Lots several weeks ago I saw these products promising me tasty cocktails by just adding water and booze and freezing for eight hours. I thought they would be a time saving addition to my Fourth of July party and picked some up. Once I was into my party preparations I realized that I didn’t have enough freezer room to hold these two buckets over night. I thought about trying to freeze the concoctions in an ice filled cooler, but instead of relying on the cooler to ice down my dinks I decided first to blend them. I reasoned that if a cooler kept ice ice over night it would keep the drinks slushy over night.

The day before the party I mixed the flavored sugar packet with the flavored colored water packet and blended that with booze and ice. In the end I was left with more drink than bucket space. I was forced to drink the overflow.

I was excited about the drinks the day before the party as I placed the buckets in an ice filled cooler for a long wintry nap. In the end the cooler kept the drinks cool, but not slushy.

While my idea was about as good as Meg Ryan’s idea to get lip implants, I think the drink in a bucket idea is generally a good one. The berry margarita was delicious blended and melted can be simply described as adult cool aide. The pomegranate martini, on the other hand, tasted like cough syrup weather melted or blended. (Who ever heard of a blended martini?) Even though the pomegranate martinis weren’t that great, it was nice to have something to puke in after I drank them all the day after my party.