design-newyork.com

The title there pretty much describes it. The long story is that here at Publicis, there are window display units where worker bees can show off their talents and skills and one display space came up and I had the opportunity to fill it with my shtuff. The CCO has to approve all the content first, because, you know, you can’t have pieces that has a woman bending over showing you her goodies while simultaneously giving you the finger and killing a raccoon with a hatchet and a word bubble comes out of her mouth saying something about how advertising is the work of the devil or something like that. It has to be nice art. We’re not trying to rile people up as they walk to and from the copier. Luckily, all my work classifies as nice art, nothing upsetting or vulgar, so that worked out well for me. But the CCO said he liked my soda can mirror I made a few years back and he would like me to display that. Here’s a pic:

Unfortunately, it’s too big for the display space, but when the CCO says he likes something, you best produce that thing or something very close to it. So I had about a week and a half to make another one, which I did (clap clap clap for me). One this one I decided to go with one color family and focus more on the pattern. So I bought a case of Fresca cans (they have a nice pattern, go look at one one day and you’ll see) and made a pattern loosely based on an ornate faux-rococco frame I saw online. I hammered all the little bits of tin onto plywood, added a mirror, and poof! A mirror is born.

Now my bedroom is covered with little bits of sharp tin can, which is awful, and if I didn’t walk around barefoot all the time and have good callouses on my feet, would also be very painful. But the CCO came down from his pretty swanktastical office and saw the display and said he liked it, so it was all worth it.

(Title is a reference to Finding Nemo)

Oh, yeah, let’s build a Halloween costume, Jessica. Oh, that would be fun, wouldn’t it, being that you have a party to go to and a costume-judging contest at work. Good times. Except that I wanted to be a cute little scarecrow-type-person, so I went to the twig district (I love New York, they have a twig district) and bought a whole bunch and suplemented those with some from my mother’s garden and now my bedroom is filled with bits of bark and tiny little gnats and I ended up not using most of the twigs anyway, bleagh. Stupid costume. I better win that damn contest, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Aaaand I’m done. Sweaty and tired, but done. Mixed up a bluer blue-green, took off all the tape and painted the hell out of the bathroom.

Voila:

My arm hurts and I’m going to take a shower now and chisel all this paint offa my skin with a toothbrush. Really. This is some tenacious paint, bro. But I’m extremely pleased. Totally happy.

Okay, I’ve taped out the bathroom and put down a base coat.

I mixed up the paint and it looked perfect and then I put on a coat and the yellow came to the surface and now instead of bluey-greenish, it’s greeny-blueish. And I’m pissed-ish. So now I have to mix up a new color with more blue to counteract the yellow. Deep breaths, deep breaths. It will all be okay. I also laid out my stencils and painted them in.

I will mix the new color and continue on my merry way and hopefully I’ll be done by tonight. Hopefully.

My guest bathroom has some issues. It’s got glass on one side with the shower and on the other side it’s pure white and there’s no cohesive thread between the two. One would think to just hang artwork on the white side that had those glass colors in it, but I already have art that I want to hang in the bathroom and it has no glass-green in it. Therefore, I am making a mural, of sorts. I traced where the art would go and incorporated the plugs, switches, towel rack, etc. into the design with ornate elements. I made sketches just to give me a rough idea of where I wanted things to go.

Then I went into Illustrator and built the ornate elements so I could cut out stencils for myself.

Now I’m taping out my bathroom so I get nice straight lines. By tonight I should have pictures of that.