Month: August 2013

A little drillbit on the side

/ llamasferrera / Leave a comment

With the front room started, naturally I turn away from that and do something for the hall. This stemmed from an idea I had a while ago and having made a birthday request, I was supplied with the appealed for wooden hand in July. Its one of those artist drawing aid ones and obviously I’m going to turn it into a mail holder.

I decided on a nice deep blue to compliment the light bluey green of the hallway and started to paint (acrylics). I left the joints alone for ease of movement, and then added a simple floral design on top of the blue. I had a spare little square of MDF lying around that I decorated in the same way and then glued the hand to its new base.

My dad was kind enough and manly enough (i.e. owns tools) to drill two holes for me (I did do a wire check first, I didn’t want to fry my father) and insert wallplugs. So all I had to then do was screw the base into the wall. The hand holds mail well enough, but I think I might attach two small magnets, one to the thumb and one to the forefinger, so it holds more securely.

I will return to the lounge now… probably.

Took the new furry addition into the garden today and we played with a tiny apple. 

Room 1 cont.

/ llamasferrera / Leave a comment

So after painting two coats, it was time to sponge (incidentally one of my favourite words). I created a simple leaf design (good ol’ William Morris is rife for stealing) and stuck it on a piece of stiff card for support.

Leaf

Then dunked in the apricot and applied to the blue walls. I can’t recommend drinking wine enough whilst decorating, it makes you bold (luckily not so bold that i didn’t give it a test first). If you want to be really anal you can measure up first to get an exact distance between each one, but I just did it by eye and hence didn’t go insane.

2013-07-12 18.49.57

I left a crumbling wall shaped gap in one corner of the room, having also stopped the blue here as I hope to do a mural in that corner. Some sort of nice countryside scene beyond the walls of the house (rather than depicting what would actually be there: my ex evicted neighbour’s 5 ft high grass bladed garden complete with their own design at regular intervals inventively created out of canine faecal matter).

#cat has a new house mate. His name is Gus. Kitty relations are troubled at present, but should improve shortly.

Room 1

/ llamasferrera / Leave a comment

Did you know you can mix your own colours at B&Q? This sounds like a good thing, but its not. Because I’m not good with decisions and this is splitting the atom of decisions. Instead of having a bunch of decisions, lets take two decisions and mix them together to make an infinite number of decisions. Do they appreciate what they’re doing to the neurotics of this world?

Before all this of course, I had to move the old sofa that had been left here away from the wall. Items found under said sofa:

2013-05-14 20.53.03

I’m still not sure what the black thing is, but I think its maybe a dog toy (I really hope its a dog toy).

After longer than I care to admit of shuffling through isles of tins and rolls of charts and watching the mixing machine (which admittedly is quite fun), I chose a pre-mixed dulux ‘Blue Reflection’. Its not entirely blue and doesn’t reflect, but names are never a paint tin’s forte I find. I suppose you’d call it a ‘feature wall’ colour, but as I’m hoping the whole house will be a feature, I ignore this and slap it on. However, I end up stopping at half the room. There’s a pleasing sort of archway that divides up the front room (use to be two I think) and chose ‘Apricot’ for the other half. (Surprisingly obvious name for a paint shade, so well call it Orange seduction instead). Have now discovered the thrill of a post-paint masking tape peel akin to a good bubble wrap pop. Have a go. Go on. Good isn’t it?

 

Niceness…

/ llamasferrera / Leave a comment

I originally set this site up as a learning tool. I work part time for an arts therapy charity and a lot of our members expressed an interest in finding new ways of selling their art. Online seemed like a good place to start and would give them a platform with which to market themselves as artists.

So why not market myself too? Market is perhaps not the right word. It reeks of zeitgeistness (not even a word). Prostitute is too harsh a word. Put myself out there sounds like middle class divorcee’s foray back into dating. Its more that I have a project in mind and to have a sort of creative record of it might be nice. Is nice the right word? Let’s not start that again.

I have a new home. Or to put it more aptly, a new canvas. This new pad has been named Maison Du Biscuit because the name made me smile and I like biscuits. And then my friends Matt and Emma bought me a custard cream cushion and that pretty much cemented the idea.

It’s a two bedroom end of terrace with a large garden. It was a two bedroom nicotine hut with a jungle. So I call that progress…