💾 Archived View for gemlog.blue › users › birchkoruk › 1637595762.gmi captured on 2021-12-04 at 18:04:22. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2021-11-30)
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Hoo boy. Well, the thanksgiving ceiling mural is naturally more work than was anticipated. "Yes, let's make a GIANT painting! 3x6' is not big enough!" Of course completely forgetting that you need a large open space to work on the painting before you put it up. So that's been fun.
My back hurts, honestly. I've been crawling around on the floor applying glue and paper and it's like working on a big chalk painting. Forced yoga, stretching all over the place. So I am stiff and sore after a couple days of this. Nothing busted, but I feel it.
I got lucky and was able to scavenge from the dumpster. Apparently the neighbors got a new big TV (I wish I knew they were going to do this so I could have used the box for the painting) and part of the packaging is styrofoam AND a large sheet of the 1/2" industrial honeycomb cardboard to protect the screen. Perfect!! So I scampered off with that. The honeycomb cardboard turned out to be the perfect size to add stability to the back.
Yesterday I finished wheatpasting all the layers and gift wrap. The 2 rolls of wrap I got were exactly enough. The only thing that screwed me up is the extra time to wait for the glue to dry. Can't paint on wet glue. I flipped the thing over and used wood glue to apply the honeycomb cardboard to the back, and I put heavy things on it to smooth out the bumpy folds.
This morning it is dry and about as reasonably flat as a person could expect. It's obviously a cardboard box opened up, but it should be good enough. This isn't a fucking met gala, I'm totally going to point at the ceiling and say that's the cardboard box my orange office chair came in and make everyone guess how little I spent on it. If I do this again I will find a material with no creases to start with, and that will probably look less like upcycled garbage. Sometimes upcycled garbage look is okay tho.
The cardboard does like to curl up when it dries, almost like the wet layer shrinks. But it corrects itself if moisture is applied to the backside. I learned it's a bit better to apply damp paper than dry paper - that way it already expands a bit on its own instead of expanding on the paste and creating larger wrinkles. A good mister really helps. Mist the paper first and then put it on the wet glue.
I made 3 quarts of wheatpaste glue and I can say that the best way was to add the flour before the water gets hot, and then whisk it until it gets the right thickness. On the last quart I added the flour to already boiling water and it instantly became very lumpy and too thick. That was a mistake. If there's a wrong way to make wheatpaste, that is it. There's definitely a sweet spot for wheatpaste thickness.
So right now I have a huge slightly wrinkled flat thing with a dark navy border and a center of weird decoupaged clouds. I have 40 oz of craft paint in whatever shades of blue were cheapest (thx amazon). I have some leftover paint. I have some UV paint. I was thinking, do I want a impressionistic night sky a la Van Gogh's Starry Night or try for something more like a realistic milky way, and I think I may err towards impressionistic. It's craft paint - something impressionistic may work better with the medium shortcomings.
Today we paint, and we get the turkey out to defrost, and we clean the kitchen, and we start the homebrew ginger ale and prep for some other dishes.
Early yesterday I put my bandit hat on (when I worked embroidery I made us bandit hats from Fantastic Mr Fox - just black beanies with large gold stars embroidered on them) and I went around and snipped pretty fall foliage for the thanksgiving centerpiece. STOLE. PILFERED. ABSCONDED. (I would not take from a private residence - this is all snipped from the apartment complex and the park.) On the upside I figured out they have large red cedars around the pool area and that makes for great table decor. They were selling garlands and wreaths of red cedar at the one grocery store. Well ha, I can get my own for free! Suck it, lousy apartment complex management! I steal your foliage!
I better get busy. I am burning daylight. Many things to do.