Drawing: Sitting at the Register

 Here is what I could see from the register.

I tried to then draw that between customers.

Postcards: A Magic Trick for Becky

I don't have the steps ready to go for this one; instead I'll offer up a comparison.

Becky sent me this card.

Pretty cool!  She uses collage elements completely differently than I do.  It's so colorful with all those different bubbles, and the face is so clear.  I am really impressed.

My reply is much much simpler, in keeping with the direction I have been headed lately.

I like it, but it only has three layer, and it's all pretty simple.

Collage: A Tin for Chris

When starting a tin, I tend to look for faces.  

Interesting faces found, I then see how things will fit in the tin.

Where will my layers come from?  Perhaps the skeleton is wearing a stylish mask.

In my experience, skeletons are often found in caves.

Why not add another language, for texture?

Boom!  One possibly haunted tin.

Collage: Tins are not postcards

Hello!  I finally got started on the Art Tins project.  I have been thinking about it / hoarding tins for years, but I have not had a good paint removal plan.  Lucky for me, my buddy Nic did have a paint removal plan, and so I went over to his house.

In his driveway, we set up some folding tray tables.  Nic drilled some holes into one, allowing us to zip tie down a drill.  Nic then installed a simple shield over the drill, since we would be using the wirebrush attachment at high speeds near our faces.

You can see here Nic stripping the paint from a Snickers tin.

.

After the paint was removed from a tin, it went into the copper bath.  Shown here, it's just a 9V battery connected to the tin on one side and a copper pipe in the other.  At first the solution was just some salt water, but later we added lemon juice.

And ta-da!  We came away with some tins with character.

Next step: Our old friend collage.  I cut out some interesting characters. 

This cathedral looked like a good backdrop to span to the two halves.

Next I started playing with the position of this guy, deciding how much I actually wanted in the tin.  I also traced him on some watercolor paper; I later added those watercolor layers to raise the figures off the background.

I yellowed the background to make the figures pop.

And that's it.  That's how I make a collage tin.  They're not all exactly the same, but the techniques are pretty similar across the board.

Postcards: Magnavox Astro-Sonic Stereo and Magnacolor

I didn't have a plan on this one, other that I knew I wanted to change what was on the TV.

So I did!  I used a weird image of a spiral sculpture that I had been unsure of what to do with for a year or more.  After plopping that into the television, everything else was messing about and problem solving.

Postcards: Appalachian Saint

So, check out this character.  Like an old Indiana Jones posing for American Gothic.  I chose him because A) he's awesome B) I wanted to try a new technique that seemed best to try first on a front facing portrait.

I cut around his head, down to his shoulders, and then folded his head down.  I put a biscuit cutter around the now mostly empty space, and painted the space inside the biscuit cutter with gold gouache, creating a golden nimbus for Dr. Jones.

I wanted to use this cool symbol, but it's actually pretty large, covering too many of the details.

In the end I went a quote from my book on alchemy and a stamp, just to add a little texture to the piece.

Postcards: More Antique Store Finds

Postcard making has not progressed quite how I hoped;  I have been sidetracked by another couple of projects.  More on those later!

I occasionally check out the local antiques stores for collage materials and postcards.  Pricing is all over the place; old magazines are anywhere from fifty cents to over twenty dollars.  I try to restrain myself to the two bucks or less side of things.  Every now and then some inexpensive Dayton themed postcards appear.

Here's a post office.

I couldn't find it on Google Maps.  As you can see below, that's not really the style of post offices anymore.

UPDATE: The building isn't a post office anymore, but it still stands!  Thank you to my father for the assist!

Good luck recreating this view.

Main Business Section?  Why couldn't they use street names?

I'm just not familiar enough with Dayton any more to know which, if any, of these buildings still stand.  This looks kind of like Main St facing Monument Ave, but really...

really it doesn't, other than the wide street with a statue in the center.

Postcards: Idol of Pomos

I made two cards today!  That means... next week(?) I'll have some posts ready.  I sent this one to Erin recently, even though the painting is old.