Adoption is expensive. It’s a horrid truth. We are blessed to know a family – adopting a second child, the sister of their first adopted daughter. To help with the expenses I made a painting to be sold at their silent auction.
It’s not what I set out to do, but I’m happy with the end result.
To donate right to their cause: Visit Here. It’s a lovely story.
Apparently, trying to display xrays in your home is not a problem for most people. It was however, for me. So off I went trying to find an inexpensive light box to hang that would be big enough. I came up empty handed.
So I though, how hard would it be to make them? Turns out, it’s pretty complicated. With may a trip to Home Depot, Michaels and a glass store under our belt, we were finally able to put all the pieces together. 
Including wiring fluorescent…
And minor construction. But damn if wasn’t worth it!
Now we have two framed light boxes with interchanging xrays over our living room couch! It creates quite the eerie, yet cozy glow to any home!
When I get the idea that I can make something myself, however crazy, I rarely can get that idea out of my stubborn brain. That is precisely what happened when I got the idea to make a lighted sign. I was thinking -
something you could find in the Boneyard in Vegas. So off I go to my favorite place, Home Depot, to see what there is to see. It took about 10 trips to the Depot and four different employee pow wows about electrical, wood types and bulbs, but finally I got to the painting stage.
Basically what you see here is a 6′ x 2.5′ piece of pine that I am painting.
This is Grace Rex and I with the final paint job.
And then I drilled the holes and strung the electricity to make it look like this!
Turned out better then I thought it would! We figured out a way to mount it on our wall too, which was challenging because I was pretty heavy.
Now it has a happy home hanging over our desks. Lord have Mercy!
I had this giant canvas that was eating away at my soul. I just could not come up with (and stick with) anything that would fit on a canvas larger then I was. 10 months went by and three different designs were sketched out and some even painted – just to have it gessoed over again. It was bad. So I decided to go back to my roots: simple graphics that often include skeletons.
Seeing as I was making it up as I went along, the pigeon came first. 
Then the flowers, and finally a border to tie it all together.
It now looks something like this, hanging on our outside wall. Overall I am happy with my little…well…huge bird. And I broke though the large scale wall!! No canvas is safe from me now!
Our curtains were white, very white. Against white walls. White is the death of me. Something had to be done.
So, with a paint, dye, water mixture I went to work. Using a straw I splattered some fake blood all over those bad boys! With that said, I really don’t recommend the straw method. I sucked up some mixture, got sick, and dyed my whole mouth crimson.
But it was worth it. Just a little bit of blood goes a long way.
Dexter, eat your heart out.
I was lucky enough to acquire two large frames in which to make a monster canvas!
We’ve never stretched a canvas before so it took some googling on Daves part.
But we did it! Now it’s bigger than me! After about…oh four months of debating what to paint on such a big surface I think we finally have something to move foreword on. I get started this week. Here are my reference images.
It has been…oh probably four years since I’ve put paint to canvas – wish me luck!
For my Moms birthday I decided to do something crazy – portraits of our family dogs – with my sewing machine.
I have never done anything like this before but channeling my inspiration: the great Nate Kassel I just went for it.
I started my drawing out the pictures of Cooper and Porter. Then I pined the drawing onto the sewing machine and sewed over the lines. Pulled off the paper when I was done and boom!
Cooper Danger.
Porter Lucifer.
They came out WAY better then I expected…well Porter did anyway.
These are some prints from the lithograph stamps I’ve made. I made them for a piece that now hangs over my couch. I’ve tried to photograph said piece, but it really doesn’t translate well to film.
Just picture them flying over a storm manhattan sky like this:
Tee shirt soon? I think so.
Instant homemade jewelry rack.
