Christmas Morning

Video of our Christmas morning.



Every time I watch a video I took all I can really think about is how much I really don't like to hear my voice pretty self centered I know. Anyone else have that overriding feeling? Hopefully not about my voice - I kinda meant your own.

Charlotte's Nightmare

So, speaking of my studio, I have really been wishing I had a place to paint at my house. My studio is about a 10 min drive from my house, but I hate going over there, away from the kids, when I am out of town so much. And I already gave some ideas of why they don't come with me a lot. I think we are getting close to finishing up the NYC job and I am really hoping to get serious about production. The intermittent painting I have been able to fit in this year has been interfering with any growth - I seem to forget everything I figure out before I get a chance to use it again. I think if I had a place to work here, then during drying or anytime they needed me I could take a little break. Unfortunately there isn't really any space in this house where that kind of thing would work. With the fumes it would probably need to be some kind of separate structure anyway. It really needs to be somewhere Charlotte doesn't really ever see it either. Her list of interesting things #7 along with the following picture of my current studio explains why this is so important- as if it wasn't already obvious to all...My tolerances for such things are a bit different.

Oliver's "Painting"

Little Ollie spent some of the day with me at the studio. He decided he would do a "paining like your's". [mine]

Actually his looks better than any of mine in a few ways.

Also, I love the medium he used for this piece. When we were painting together a few months ago, he dipped his brush in a little deep (think well past his hand at the end of the brush). I cleaned him up and then cleaned the brush and as soon as I got out to the main area from the bathroom, realized he had decied to keep working without me. I think most of the paint was on the floor, but he definitely had plenty on him too, and the 20 or so brushes he was using. The mostly full gallon he was working out of was now mostly empty. I will have to post the "Rabbit" painting for that day sometime. The pens on white-board can only go so wrong.

Movie

I am Not one of those people who's life revolves around an aspect of pop culture (I hope anyway). I think I see 3, maybe up to 5, movies in theaters in any given year. Pretty much all of these are because my kids desperately want to see them or I am alone in some city with nothing to do and everything is closed when I am done working. I am convinced that most movie experiences have as much to do with the viewers' state of mind as the actual picture. I have been in this Apt for four days straight. I had Charlotte mail me some food. It was taking too much time going out to dinner at night. Dinner is typically my only meal anyway. I've been working from about 7am to 10-11pm. Tonight I finally got to my goal just in time to make it to the 1130pm showing. After that kind of isolation this movie was quite the intense experience, only to be made a little more strange by walking home in a bit of an ice storm on some of the same roads as in the movie. Amazing how deserted this place gets at night with a bit of ice on the roads. I probably need to be a little more careful what movies I watch, since I am already afraid of the dark anyway. Good thing the roads aren't dark or I am not sure I could have made it home

I kind thought it would be a little embarrassing to write a bunch of stuff about me. Though I enjoyed reading this I think it might be even more embarrassing to read what someone else wrote- only know others are reading it too. Well at least one other person anyway. I certainly cant remove it after all the work Charlotte put into it. I will obviously need to make a post with my own "clarifications" to this list. Let me state right now however that I absolutely can Not imagine being more attracted to anyone than I am to my Beautiful wife. I am also very glad she finally married me even if I will never really understand it. I worry sometimes - I need to move this to a post.... anyway i worry sometimes and try - though not consistently enough to make sure this marriage doesn't fit the pattern set by her older sisters' first marriages. They also first married men a bit less than what they deserved (I am pretty sure they would agree with that)as Charlotte clearly did too. I am trying to become a better person than the one she married. I will have to to the rest of the items later. Time for bed now.

7 Interesting Things

Okay, since Tyler is never going to get around to this... I'm going to do it for him. But you better read quickly... he retains the right to edit, delete, or in any other way "fix" this post.

1. He can remember things from when he was an infant in a car seat and couldn't talk. (The only other person I have heard of that has this in common is Georgia O'Keefe- so maybe it's an artist thing.)

2. Colors and numbers have personality to him. Subtraction was difficult, as a child, since some numbers where taken away.

3. He feels that having attention deficit is an asset, not a handicap. When we first started dating, it bothered me that he could be watching T.V., drawing, and supposedly listening to me at the same time- until I realized that he actually was listening. He just appeared to have his focus elsewhere.

4. He is the smartest person I know. When he was given an I.Q. test as a child, the score was so high, his parents thought perhaps he had cheated until the administrator explained that was impossible. (Their doubts were likely due to how poorly he was doing in school.) He is not only "book" smart, though. He has amazing problem solving skills, common sense and is a trivia king!

5. Although it is hard to pin him down on a "favorite," the colors he most often chooses are those that other people would call "ugly." Puke green, mustard yellow and brown are good examples.

6. He doesn't really believe in "talent" for art. He believes that anyone can become good at drawing, painting, etc. if they just decide they want to do it and practice. He doesn't feel that as a child he had talent or was even particularly good at art. He just wanted to do it and practiced all the time.

7. The MOST interesting thing is that he married me! Although he loves to tell strangers a bizarre story about how he rescued me from a trailer park and an abusive marriage- we actually met at good old "Ivy Towers" dance club in Provo. I was there with a guy I had been "dating" who was a real jerk. To make my date mad, I decided to flirt with the best looking guy in the club. Who else but Tyler?! I really never expected him to even give me the time of day. I think he didn't expect to give me any attention either. He thought I was dressed funny and had a big nose. But I stole his heart- I guess it was "meant" to be =)

possible T-shirt for Huntzinger family reunion

I been trying to put this together. I kind of like how it is coming out. What you you all think? The lettering describing the desserts on the original label is being a little troublesome to me. My first thought was changing it to say something like "Little devils with super sweet filling". Mostly that was attractive because that would be very few letters I would have to draw in that same font some words even stay the same. That isn't going to work for obvious reasons. For anyone who may not find it obvious - it would be really lame.
Any suggestions for alternatives would be great. Even if the suggestions are lame too it may be a starting place so cough um up anyway- they cant be worse than what I just admitted to.
Any feedback on any other aspect of the design would also be appreciated - even if you just fell compelled to tell me the whole concept is "lame". Ignore the exact date. I haven't looked at the calendar yet - or i guess you could tell me when it is
Below is the original in case any of you haven't seen one or have just forgotten.

Sales at the Seattle home decor store (and link)

Here are some pictures of the pieces that have sold at the show in Seattle. At least the ones I have already received a check for anyway.

'Overexposed' 22'x 28'

Yesterday I also finished another painting. I will take it over to the gallery later today I think. I haven't been doing very well with taking photos of my works, and been event worse about updating my website MY SITE I just received an email informing me I have sold another 3 paintings in Seattle. Another interesting developments up there too... I guess a art reproduction company, Grand Image (their site), contacted me about signing with them for 4 years. I need to discuss a few specifics with them but not really seeing any reason not to do so.

So yesterday I was in Logan doing some repair work. I used that as an opportunity to take some photos of the work we did there. The bottom picture is the bathroom where we had the repair work needed. The homeowner seemed a little put out that no one removed the toilet when we painted the powder bath, so wen they changed toilet to a super low profile some of the original white walls showed. In all the years I have been painting I have never heard of someone just expecting something like that. I guess they thought we were plumbers also. Of course the wall needs to be finished down to the new toilet -just weird they thought the wall should have been finished behind the old one. Of course all they heard from us was, "we'll take care of that."



This is the master bedroom. The ceiling is genuine silver leaf aged with a true patina. The contrast in this finish isn't nearly as strong and it looks in the photos. It is hard to photograph highly reflective surfaces. It is a little stronger than I would have liked - it was what they wanted though. Some of the cool iridescence doesn't show up at all, even in the detail.



This is Aluminum leaf (the "silver" leaf you get at craft stores) on a burnished plaster finish. The leafing is lightly aged with some steel wool giving a "brushed" metal look. the shaped are based on a drawing I did in VA of some daisies that are kind of drying up. I used that drawing in several ceramics pieces I did in school too.

kids' rooms murals

This is in the girl's room. It is about 6'x9'. unfortunately you cant see the little bugs there are crickets grasshoppers caterpillers little bees and wasps and even a fly.




This is in the boy's room. It is about 7' x 12' pretty monumental effect actually. Oliver LOVED it.


Yesterday I went up to Park City to do some repair work on some plaster in a house that had a sprinkler (interior fire prevention) leak. It was a house where I had painted some murals for the kids' rooms. I was able to get some photos while I was there, more later but I've got to get up to Logan, and I am hoping to get home before the kids go to bed tonight. Really starting to get to me how often that happens.

Finished.... for now

So I am "finished" with the stuff I needed to complete on this trip. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get done until yesterday, but now I am home again. This photo shows what the walls look like – this is that same room with all the masking in the previous post . Much of the ceiling has the same finish on it. Usually in really small spaces – especially with low ceilings, it is important to finish the ceiling as well as the walls. Often, in early consultations, clients express concerns that having anything other than white on their ceiling will make the ceiling feel closer. I have found that white simply makes the ceiling feel forgotten or even the whole space feel uncompleted. I think either of these is worse than having it look closer.

Sometimes when I am doing a whole house – especially in colored plaster, the ceilings add up to be a very substantial amount of additional money. In these situations often it works to find a similar color to the plaster for some of the ceilings. Rarely is the best option to have all the ceilings just be painted. Mostly it seems to depend on how awkward the ceiling may be, and more importantly how much of your field of vision is ceiling in that particular space. Ceilings can be a really good opportunity to support the feeling you are attempting with the walls. Even if the walls are just a carefully selected paint color, the ceiling color can be a color that can have a powerful effect.

In our library/nursery/guestroom we have a deep turquoise on the walls , The lighting isn’t great there, so I went with a darker color on the walls because darker colors recede into the distance in low light situations. The more intense color prevents the room from looking drab in the low light. Much of the natural light in this room come almost vertically up. This is reflected off the concrete of our neighbor’s driveway that is right outside that window and the neighbor’s house blocks most of the light from the sky that would be very blue. Light reflected from the ground is usually reddish (unless it is off of grass of course) so on the ceiling in there we put a very bright lemony green (almost a chartreuse muted just enough to read as white). I think this color gives a look of a glow that makes the soft light look more comforting and makes the ceiling combine with the walls really well. If it was done the same darker color as the walls, it would have absorbed way too much light . Unless you are trying to achieve a stark or rigid look and feel (maybe in a very formal setting), true white should be avoided for any painted surfaces.

My Lonley Heart

I really enjoy listening to this guy playing in the subway. He is on the uptown side of the spring street station (green line), pretty much every time I have been there in the past few years. I love his dilapidated old guitar and the way he pauses for trains, completely unselfconsciously. And I really love the way he truly doesn’t seem to care about whether anyone is listening or not. I guess the thing I love most is the plaintive longing in his love songs. I suppose it really strikes a chord partly because I am always missing Charlotte so much while I am away.

bogged down

The little bedroom (how it looks today) that I have been working on for weeks.


I have noticed that things rarely seem to be going well (quickly) on my painting jobs and then all the sudden everything is done. Sounding like a real optimist here… Anyway I am at that point that it seems like nothing is getting done day after day and I am supposed to be done tomorrow I really don’t see how this could possibly happen. We are going to be working late into the night again tonight- in fact we have been working 10-15 hour days since we got here. We are currently working on the master bedroom walls. We are doing kind of a subtle bi-directional stria (streaking horizontal and vertical) in warm creamy white over a mauvey brown basecoat that has been covered by a thin veil of translucent iridescent gold. I added a mica powder to water based polyurethane that only reflects a gold color when it catches the light, but is otherwise clear. Sorry, I am probably getting too basic here, don’t mean to offend. I will definitely post a picture later but I am sure most of the effects couldn’t be seen in photos even if you were comparing quite a few from different angles in different light. One of the downsides to the understated finishes I try to produce is that they rarely photograph well. I almost always hate it when the first thing you see when you walk into a room is the finish on the walls. When I see that I can almost hear the often accompanying “I Fauxed it!”

Initial Posting

So I am here in NYC (above picture is out my "bedroom" window in the evening) trying to finish up a job - that keeps expanding, and have finally been unable to resit the urge to start some kind of a blog. Mostly I have been resiting because I know that I would have a very hard time with three aspects that would be important to my feeling in any way successful in this endeavor. There are going to be several others ways that I will fall sort as well. I just don't feel those are very important. Three ways let’s see now I don’t remember them.... I know one was a lack of focus. That one is obviously already kicking in... Oh, and consistency - I probably will make like 5 posts in a day then go months with nothing. Finally the one I feel is maybe the most important, and the one I am sure I will fail most miserably at fighting, is a fairly consistent tend toward the negative. I don’t really think of myself as a pessimist I am not negative by nature I don’t think. I seems to have something to do with writing stuff down and the major effort it take for me to follow one train of thought long enough to try to actually communicate it in writing. Usually by the end of the sentence I am second guessing every aspect of it so much that I often am not able to even leave it in anymore. Somehow the negative stuff makes it through maybe cause it is harder to construe those to be in any way bragging which I am always concerned that I am going to sound like. It is definitely interesting to me that I am much more concerned about sounding like I am bragging that actually bragging. I guess the most obvious of the shortcomings I will that that I do Not feel matter much is grammar - luckily I have a wife that actually does care about such things so hopefully she will rescue me from some of the most heinous of my grammatical transgressions.

This is my "bedroom". Nice rosewood walls, don't ya think?