Bedroom + Art

Couple of things from the weekend:

1. I went to Ikea, and I bought a loooooot of things.  The first item on my list, and the most important, was this:

Oooh, aaah...

ALVINE KVIST duvet & sham set, $39.99.  I have wanted this duvet cover for YEARS, you guys.  I finally have it.  Yay!  

I also purchased:

1. a whole bunch of FAGLAVIK drawer handles for my kitchen, which I'm about half-done putting in place. They're $7.99 for a 2-pack, but I found a bunch in the as-is section for  $3, so I bought them all.  Turns out, I need three more two-packs!  Oops.  Pics when done. :) 
2. an UPPLEVA (I know, right? Wth) tilting tv wall bracket, so my TV is now hung on the living room wall again!  (And now, since I've replaced the one I lost, I'll probably find it any day now). 
3. a metric assload of small, cheap things, like you do.  

2. I painted some pictures.  A pair of canvases, for a pair of dear friends' birthdays: 

I completely forgot what I called this one, but it was for my friend Laurie, who is bright and tall and colorful, and always growing and reaching.  She's also a very spiritual person; when I was little, I thought sunbeams streaming through the clouds were happening because Heaven (which was a floating cloud island) was right there at that exact moment (God flew it around, naturally) - so this is Grace and Heaven and stuff smiling down on Laurie.   :) 

This one was for my best friend, Sylvan, and is called "Sylvan of the Trees", something I see her say a lot on her various blogs and on Pinterest.  That's her face, yes (no, it doesn't really look like her, because I'm terrible at portraiture.  You're lucky I can even draw faces that don't look like Monkey Jesus), but the whole picture is her.  I wanted to paint a picture for her, to her, but I wasn't sure what to paint - and then I decided to paint a picture of all of the things about her that I love, so that she can look at the picture and believe what she sees, even if she doesn't believe me when I tell her she's awesome.  Her response to this, of course, was to flail her hands at me, saying, "STOP GIVING ME FEELS!"   Hee.  I think she liked it. ;)  

More soon!  

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More Art Studio Shenanigans

Form of:  drill holes in the wall!  GO!!!

WHEN LAST WE MET ART STUDIO.....

IKEA: DIGNITET curtain wire and clips;
World Market wooden jali screen

Now I have a place to hang some of my paper works to dry/for display,
and a nice backdrop for when I'm working. 

Still to go:

• paint the walls
• paint the closet (I organized it the other day, finally.  No pics, sorry)
• build a taller easel so I can stand up when I want to

Tada. 

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4AM Painty Shenanigans

[Subt. "Insomnia:  Harnessing Your Inner Crazyperson"]  

Soooo cleaning up - and fixing up - my nascent art studio is on my list, but it hasn't been very high on my list of late.  So much else to do!  All at once!  How is it ever going to get done?!  ACK!!!.

Well, apparently, sleeplessness will do the trick.  I've had chronic and recurrent insomnia all my life.  Most of the time it comes and goes, in 2-3 week cycles;  it's been absent for a couple of months now (in fact, lately, I can't seem to do anything but sleep), and I had just about forgotten about it...until last night, when, at 2am, I realized I'd been lying in bed for a really long time, not sleeping, and it was starting to piss me off.  That's really, really bad for insomnia. I'd much rather be awake for no reason and up and around, than lying in bed getting angrier and more stressed about how dead I'm going to be at work the next day, you know?

So I got up and walked into the art studio, to this:

Yeah.  I may have been using the giant work table in here to cut out costumes.  I may also have been throwing fabric at the trash can without looking.  ....yes, there's a trash can under there.

 The rest of the corner is a bit...pile-y...but not too bad.  I reeeeeally need to spend a few HOURS in here organizing my craft shit.   The tarp that's normally under that easel?  Got peed on by a dog.  #%%#@!$

So last night at 2am, I cleaned all that junk up, put my toys away, emptied the trash, , put the tarp back down (I washed it the other day).

BIG DEAL.  Lemmetellya something about me:  I really, really hate seeing "before and after" when all a person does is clean their room.  You're supposed to clean it!  You don't get bloggy bonus points for undoing a hellacious mess!!

But I told you all of that, so that I can show you this:

1.  Not only is the room clean and organized and ready to be actually decorated and stuff...

2.  While 2am saw me cleaning and shuffling, 4am saw me painting a new picture!!  I'M SO EXCITED YOU GUYS WOW.

The rainy-tree thing in the  second picture was from like two months ago.  I like leaving my latest painting up on the easel until [whatever happens].   This new one's going in my front hall with the two from the art class last month;  but for now, it's decorating my easel.

I can't WAIT to get started working on this room.  It needs to start with gutting the closet and painting, hanging new shelves, and re-organizing the entire room, which will be a full weekend's worth of work at least.   After that the painting space is going to get seriously souped up.  I also want to build a new easel.  I adore this one, and it's great for sitting, but I generally prefer to stand to paint, and it's nowhere near tall enough for that.

I just haven't decided if I want to paint the walls or leave them white.

"Lotus Fire"

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A Ten-Minute Side Table Upgrade

You know what's awesome?

Spray paint.

This table is fucking boring.

Now it's awesome!

This is actually the original glass top for the thing.  I think I got this table at a garage sale for $20 like a million years ago.  It was white, and it had an MDF top under the glass that was SUPER gross and water-damaged.  I threw it away, and sprayed the table black.

It spent a lot of time being a table on my back porch, where it went great with the black wicker chairs.  Then it spent some time in my living room, being a pain in the ass with a silver fake-o Moroccan tray on it.

But it needed to be SHINY.  SHINY!!!!  


Now it is awesome.

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