House No. 191: Spice Rack House

House No. 191: Spice Rack House

design and plans

projected size: 16 in. x 32 in. x 8 in.

191/365; 07/10/11

A few years ago, I read a review by Frank Bruni of the late restaurant Elettaria entitled A Doll’s House with a Spice Rack. I remember little more about the review other than thinking that I absolutely had to have a dollhouse spice rack.

The design is based on Second Empire architecture.

 

The interior is going to be lined with chrome wire racks that hold 4 oz. glass spice bottles.

Many advance thanks to the Werepanda, who will be helping me with the power tools.

House No. 190: Portrait of Home

 

House No. 190: Portrait of Home

collaboration

undetermined size

190/365; 07/09/11

 

In addition to making a house everyday, I have a much bigger house project. It is over a hundred years old and about 3700 square feet of restoration project. When it was time to get some changes approved by our city's Architectural Review Board, I drew the plans that were part of the proposal.

 

 

Today I drew a simplified version of this drawing and started another collaboration on a house with Amy Black of Trademark Tattoo. She will be tattooing the this drawing onto my husband, who met with Amy today.

  

 

What kind of a good sport is he to get one of my daily houses permanently affixed to his person? That's my awesome werepanda!

 

House No. 186: The Burrow, Part 1

House No. 186: The Burrow, Part 1
collaboration

undetermined size

186/365; 07/05/11

Today I started a collaboration on a house with Amy Black of Trademark Tattoo.

 

The Burrow is the home of the Weasleys, a wizarding family in the Harry Potter books. Their house is a mishmash described as looking pieced together and held up by magic. It reminds me of my crazy house, and in many ways, my life. Molly Weasley is my favorite character from the books. She is a fierce and awesome mother figure.

 

 

I started with a pencil sketch based on the descriptions of the Burrow in the Harry Potter books, and here you can see Amy’s notes and additions on my sketches. I can’t wait to see what Amy comes up with and the finished piece on me!

House No. 173: Neoclassical Mansion

House No. 173: Neoclassical Mansion
pencil, colored pencil, ink, and paper on found object
5 in. x 4.5 in. x 1.25 in.
173/365; 06/22/11

Today's house started with a dollhouse fireplace that the WerePanda and I bought at Replacements during a trip through North Carolina.

And some paper samples from my endless supply.

Add some illustration, and voilà, a neoclassical mansion fit for the American Southeast.

By the way, if you like the decorative arts, you must go to Replacements to see their private collection. It is amazing.

House No. 169: Grey Tree House

House No. 169: Grey Tree House
collage, pencil, and ink on matboard
7 in. x 6 in.
169/365; 06/18/11

Today’s house is an homage to Misha at 365 Trees. (What up, Misha? Shout out to a fellow 365er!) I have made a couple other tree houses already, and I am certain this is not my last of the year.

I started with a photo of a tree that I had clipped aeons ago and glued it to yet another piece of scavenged stock. (Again saved from my classroom’s trash.) This one was a thick piece of mat board with a lovely creamy texture. There is some vellum collaged on there as well. There are a few types of graphite and inks on the surface.

House No. 167: Number 7 Eccles Street, Dublin

House No. 167: Number 7 Eccles Street, Dublin
pencil on paper
12 in. x 9 in.
167/365; 06/16/11

In honor of Bloomsday, I offer a portrait of Leopold Bloom’s house, Number Seven Eccles Street, in front of a rough map of Dublin with a sketch of the front door to Number Seven, now preserved in the James Joyce Centre, and a portrait of Mr. Bloom himself.

House No. 127: Constellation Houses

House No. 127: Constellation Houses

pencil and white out tape on repurposed matboard

8.75 in. x 6.5 in.
127/365; 05/07/11

Today’s piece is sort of a variation on yesterday’s. Both have three houses and use some of the same materials, but yesterday’s deals with space and today’s piece is about line.

I like the idea of constellations: people playing connect the dots with stars to create pictures and mythology. It is a common trait amongst all people to find patterns and make visual sense out of randomness and stories to explain the unknowable.

I invented a sky in this drawing where I found houses pictured among the stars. For the Skull Appreciation Day exhibition in Richmond, Virginia, I did something similar.

House No. 126: Achromatic Trio

House No. 126: Achromatic Trio

ink, pencil, and collage on repurposed matboard

8.75 in. x 6.5 in.
126/365; 05/06/11

The process that I used to make this piece started with a piece of vellum. It is very similar to a thick piece of tracing paper. It is actually used to diffuse light for photography, and I had a piece of it that had been damaged on a photo shoot that I was on. I had been holding on to it in my collections for awhile. 

I worked on both sides of the translucent paper before adhering to the matboard, which was another classroom salvage.

The white is correction tape that I pull out and transfer with a pencil to make varied lines. Again, I like that the process is indirect and makes me give up some control of the drawing. (This is something that I do a lot in class with my students, removing them from the direct process of mark making. It really frees up the artist to lose complete control.) The process is similar to printing and transferring.

I made the white, transferred marks with the correction tape on both sides of the vellum, and I colored with graphite to the point of going through the paper. I love how shiny the pencil gets on the smooth surface of the paper and how the marker soaks up the light almost completely, making the surface a very flat black.

The texture and quality of the surface, along with the change in tonality, indicates depth in a mostly flat drawing.

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

 

House No. 124: Connect the Dots House

collage and encaustic on chipboard

18 in. x 12 in.
124/365; 05/04/11

Those of you who know me in life outside of the innerwebs know that I am super Safety First Girl. Somehow, I threw that caution and conscientiousness to the wind whilst working on today's house.

I was not exactly thinking about what I was getting hot, and I had glue and packing tape on this piece that probably should not have been heated and inhaled. 

That customer card is from the late Minerva Books in Petersburg that closed down a couple years ago. I loved that bookstore. Sigh.

I just love the way the wax pooled and beaded-up on surfaces, especially the metallic paper that is most likely toxic when heated but oh, so pretty.

Below, you can see the packing tape that shriveled up from the heat. I ended up getting a headache and feeling light headed and nauseous. I'm not sure how much of that was from toxic fumes and how much is from working over a hot pizza stone and oven

House No. 123: Rooftops

House No. 123: Rooftops

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
123/365; 05/03/11

I started to get more controlling about the encaustics, which is sort of funny considering that I was excited about them loosening up my hand. I wanted to push them though, so I started to crudely control the temperature with two pizza stones (one was heating in the oven while I worked on the other) and two cookie sheets cooled in the freezer.

By controlling the heating and cooling, I was able to solidify goops of wax where I wanted them (sort of) and cool the surface enough to get thick, chunky lines. See the black accents in these details for examples of that line work.

I re-melted portions, wiped them smooth with paper toweling, scratched into the wax with chopsticks and pieces of cardboard, spread the wax around and cooled it into dimensional surfaces, and melted colors together.

Above, you can see where I wiped off a lot of color and pooled it on top in the yellow and grey areas. Then I worked into the cooler wax with the black crayon to get harder edges with more contrast.

Different shades of brown and red made up these tile roof, above. I wiped the areas clear to layer the color and then cooled chunks of molten wax to create dimension and texture.

I used a lot of white in the above portion to make the windows look reflective and to create highlights. Different color tones and hues and layers of wax create shading and dimension, as seen in detail below.

Stylistic inspiration for today's house came largely from Egon Schiele. (A warning about following that Schiele link: a lot of his works are Not Safe for Work.)

House No. 120: Alsatian Bourg

 

House No. 120: Alsatian Bourg

encaustic on paper

18 in. x 12 in.
120/365; 04/30/11

No matter how old I get, I will never lose my excitement over metallic crayons. They are awesome. And just look how great they look when they melt:

Check out the sparkles floating in the wax. Love, love, love that!

Check out the lint and dog fur also floating in the wax. Well, it adds texture, at least.

Colors with white in them make really lovely, subtle layering. (See the pink areas above.) That is my favorite part of this process, the layering and translucent obfuscation.