19 September 2016
RULERS
Rulers: I hate them. Especially the measuring kind. I'm good at DIY in general, always have done my own putting up/taking down shelves, painting, plastering, caulking, basic electrical stuff, self-assembling furniture (even when instructions are in ancient Greek), repairing broken things and so on. However, my bête noire is/are rulers. All those fine little lines between actual proper numbers are beyond the pale. I more or less ignore them. A piece of cardboard marked wherever marks are needed is much handier.
So here we are, latest box construction in full flow, and I just happen to put the big ruler (centimetres) against the left side of the box, and then again on the right side.
Well, as you can see in the two photos below, the height of the left side is 41 (minus two-ish little lines) whereas the height of the right side is 40 (plus four-ish little lines). Conclusion: the left is higher than the right by a certain number of little lines. Now I don't mind some roughness, I often prefer it. But if one side of the finished box when hung on a wall will be noticeably higher than the other, it will drive me nuts. Therefore it must be corrected. Unfortunately I have been extremely conscientious and every bit of wood etc. is firmly glued to every other bit so lowering one side is out of the question.
No worries! As usual, I'll bluff my way out of measurement by improvisation. I will...erm...simply build up the top of the shorter side with some clever packing. Or maybe lower the higher side by planing the hardboard down. Or maybe......
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16 September 2016
PABLEAU NO.4 IN PROGRESS
Sometimes I find ready-made boxes but I'm building this bigger one from scratch using what materials are on hand - an old stretcher for the frame, odds and ends of wood, hardboard and balsa for the sides. Lots of cutting, glueing and sanding. Solid but not fancy.
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13 September 2016
REFLECTION
Pableau box No.3 is finished, titled REFLECTION. I haven't managed to get a good photo showing its angles, depth and reflections. Would need special lighting, or something. Here's the best I could do so far.
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11 September 3016
PABLEAU 1 ALTERATION FINISHED
Finally altered the child's face to look more or less like I wanted. Not touching it anymore. Working on new box now.
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7 September 2016
SONG FOR SEPTEMBER
That picosong link is so tempting, makes it too easy to indulge one's secret (not so secret) desire for performance. Here's my own very abbreviated take on a timely favourite.
September Song
There's nothing like the original Walter Huston version, heard in the movie clip from September Affair with Joan Fontaine and Joseph Cotten. I could do without Fontaine's sugar-saturated smirk but Cotten's expression is good.
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1 September 2016
UPLIFTING
The posters are up at Uplift.
I mentioned a while ago that I'm one of the winning artists in a poster competition organised by Uplift, the company which is converting the former Pizza Express building on Kentish Town Road into a cinema. The brief was to design a poster for your favourite film and I chose Bicycle Thieves.
This morning Uplift invited the winners to gather at the site where the chosen posters (beautifully printed and mounted on wood panels) are displayed on the hoardings which conceal the construction-in-progress - the cinema itself won't be ready before next year. The artists were photographed with their posters and interviewed by the Camden New Journal (out next Thursday).
One reason for my choice of this film was that my brilliant late brother-in-law Gerardo Guerrieri worked on the script so of course I mentioned this to Dan Carrier, the journalist for CNJ. Will post his article about all the posters when it comes out next week. I arrived late to the gathering so didn't meet the other artists, unfortunately, but I hope the CNJ article will show them all.
Meanwhile some photos I took this morning.
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