Looking forward, looking back.

Looking over the numbers, it’s been a pretty sad month. Looking up from early projections, but still pretty sad. I’m going to bed soon. Going to work on a few things tomorrow… getting the tables finished, making a decision about this melty … thing, helping Heath get his lamp together after school… and then we’re off to Phoenix for Thursday night and Friday. Dad and I will return to Pine Friday night, and Heath will stay for a few additional days.

I’m not 100% on what I’ll be doing in Phoenix, except perhaps for watching The Day After Tomorrow and hopefully buying some lamp shades. Need some lamp shades.

Anyway, aside from whatever I get done tomorrow before we leave, my numbers for the month don’t look to be changing much. (For those of you who don’t get it, Triober (month 3) ends in two days (those days being 364 and 365.1), so my tracking of stats for the month ends around the time I get back from the valley.) Looks like 38.5 hours dedicated to art, a little over 22 hours focused directly on actual furniture-building, and 3 hours writing (fiction – not blog entries). With a couple of good hours working on the tables and lamp tomorrow, I may get from ~22 to ~25 or 26 hours. Though that’s generous, considering how things tend to go around here. Still, really weak numbers, I’d say.

Sure, that doesn’t count things like spending most of the day today loading beams and trusses onto a truck to the point of exhaustion, or helping water for a couple of hours after supper tonight, or the day of work the other day getting the beams ready to be loaded, or the several hours wasted trying to frame “Screw Moo” to no avail. It only counts dedicated hours of focused work on a particular area. It certainly doesn’t count time spent gathering materials, wandering around in the woods looking for trees to use for wood for furniture, or standing around for hours talking about the furniture we’re going to build. Which in the modern American workplace would all be billable hours.

So don’t try to compare my hours to yours. This is mostly for me to see that … well, to see that I don’t leave every box but sleep empty on my chart. A day where I don’t work on art or furniture or writing, a day I also don’t exercise or shower, that seems like a day I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do, and it sounds like a day I wasn’t even working toward my other goals by building furniture. Blanks on the chart help motivate me. Right after the last post about the chart I had a string of four or five good days where I didn’t leave all those spaces blank. That’s when I got “Screw Moo” done. And all the work I can do on my own for a new floor lamp, which now lives in furniture limbo, waiting for help from my father on the next step. Maybe we’ll do it tomorrow.

Or maybe he threw out one of the pieces I made for it.

Bah. It’s nearly midnight. I’m trying to go to bed earlier and get out of bed earlier. You know what they say about “early to bed, early to rise…” It cuts back on my creativity and makes me feel like an ineffective tool.

That’s what they say, right?

Anyway. Maybe I’ll break into Learning Perl. I’ve got it from the library on inter-library loan. Maybe I’ll just keep working my way through Against All Enemies. Maybe I’ll just pass out. Dunno.

I’ll try to get some (camera) photos of the other tables for you before I leave tomorrow. You know, in case they miraculously sell before I get another chance. And maybe the melty thing and Heath’s lamp, depending on how things go.

Looks like the last of the 25 “original” ME24s is going up right now. I have … at least three weeks worth of additional comics backlogged, and … should I find the time, will easily maintain a good lead on them to insure you daily (M-F) comics for your pleasure. Did I mention I’m thinking of offering limited edition ceramic figurines of the characters from ME24? Any interest out there? They’ll be cute!

Art post for 362.1 AC

Okay. Black, black, black. Lots of black. Black border on Screw Moo, black undercoat on … melty thing. Black on my hands. Black-y black black. Black.

Almost out of various mediums. Running out. Need more. Almost out of canvases. Which may be why I’m working on plywood for a couple of pieces. But I do have … two or three canvases left. Small, small, huge. And I have some paints. Some paints I’ve never used, donated from a friend. May try using those. May just work with what I have left of everything else. No money for new paints. No money for new canvases. No money for new mediums. No money … blah blah blah … until you buy more paintings! You should buy them! They’re GRRRRREAT!!

Yeah.

Like cereal.

The low, low prices of the Spring Cleaning Art Sale are available through the end of May (ie: through Monday, May 31st, 2004), after which time prices will return to normal. Yes, “Screw Moo” is available through Monday for the low, low price of $40 to Arizona residents (or people who will agree to pay an additional shipping charge). Email now!

OR, come up to Pine, Arizona for Memorial Day weekend! All my art and furniture is available for low, low prices – if you ask for me by name. You know my name, right? It’s “Teel McClanahan III”. Heck. If you just ask for “Teel” and then make me a reasonable offer I’ll give you the art you want for that price. We’ll be open 9-5 all weekend. Not to mention the other half-dozen shops we have right here on our property, and the huge arts and crafts festival just three doors down, right in the heart of Pine, Arizona.

It’s fun. You should come.

I’m going to go … I don’t know. Not paint more black, I think.

True Rambling

More work on art to do tonight. Have been fiddling around trying to get a frame made for “Screw Moo” for a couple of days to no avail. Will … work something out with it tonight. Probably the same-old same-old, paint the edge black, tack a hanger on the back, and put it out for sale anyway. What else can I do?

Also going to be beginning the painting part of the work on the … project I haven’t described here before. The melty one, for the two of you who have seen it. I want to get it out for sale for the Memorial Day Weekend (we’re trying to get quite a bit of things done for the weekend despite the fact that the huge influx of people looking at the stuff on these holiday weekends does not typically correlate to an increase in sales) which means I need to get a lampshade bought for it. Which is more money going out without money coming back in. Hopefully I’ll be able to achieve a paint effect on it that I am pleased with. Hopefully someone will see it this weekend and love it so much that they simply can’t live without it and take it home. And the other three lamps I’ve already got done. And the three tables. Because seriously. I needs me the money.

What else?

I suppose I ought to spray-paint the black on the GWB today and bring it up here to dry. Takes about 3-5 days, it seems. How can taggers get any work done with rates like that? Quality work, I mean. I suppose their work is usually in places where it isn’t touched for days, weeks, and more. Oh well. The spray-ness of the paint serves my purposes well.

Of course, once the black is dry I’ll have no choice but to figure out a way to to the stenciling work.

Which I’ve not really begun.

Maybe I ought to do that today, too. As long as I’m doing art projects instead of furniture (ie: money-making) projects all afternoon. Fiddle around in Photoshop making stencils. Or just on paper. Or whatever. But figure it out. Because seriously. I can’t even begin to screw the thing up until the paint is dry, and there’s three colors after the black.

Sigh.

My upper lip is messed up. I blame you.

Am I rambling yet? Let me try harder.

So then the guy who was supposed to be here today to pick up the trusses and what-not for the roof isn’t going to be here today, but will be here tomorrow morning. Perhaps at the same time as the county inspectors, which could be an amusing complication. And standing around waiting to get thousands of pounds of steel dropped on me will certainly pass the time tomorrow. Wheee!

And one of the tables we’ve been working on is almost entirely done (legs on, now it just needs some touch-up work and waxing), and DAMN if it isn’t ugly. To me, anyway. I guess I still don’t like this whole “rustic” furniture thing. Then again, I’m not the one buying it. I’m just the one making it. And I’ve seen this style of stuff in people’s homes … of course, when I did I always thought it was ugly… Oh well.

I’ll be sure to try to get some photographs of the tables taken … before the weekend … since they’re TOTALLY going to sell this weekend. Yep. Totally.

I’m thinking I may have to put the three new lamps (two by me, one based on my design but crafted by Heath) in the store without lampshades… at least until something sells. You know. Because lamp shades cost money. Money which I do not have. Because my lamps haven’t sold yet. Damnit.

Anyway, I’m still downloading OS updates. I blame the ISP up here, what with the frequent random disconnections, the slow bitrate, and the devil. Wait. I always blame the devil – it doesn’t have anything to do with the ISP that I blame the devil. Of course, it’s all in jest – the devil didn’t have anything to do with it – only the ISP.

Would you believe that the bulk of the four hours I spent yesterday “working” on furniture was basically just cleaning up after the foaming expanding glue that dad decided to use to glue the legs into the table? And that it kept foaming for hours after I left and that’s why the table needs to be touched up? How about this: Would you believe that my father wouldn’t give up on this particular glue until it had damaged one of HIS pieces? See, he’d bought it before and it had foamed up and caused havoc with all three of my lamps, irrevocably staining the wood in one place (that most people won’t notice, we hope, since it’s “rustic” furniture) and being disturbingly ugly in others. But that wasn’t enough to stop him from using the glue. So he used it on these table legs. And it did exactly the same thing, but since it hurt one of HIS pieces, now he’ll never use it again.

Anyway, I’mm off to unload some wood. Wheee!