Bathroom Redo

A couple weeks ago our little boy went to spend the week at Oma & Opa's house with his cousin. While more sensible parents would have used this time to go out partying and having morning sex, we instead decided to redo our bathroom which was in serious need of some attention. (Truth be told we did stay up late, go to a show, sleep in, get massages and go out to an amazing dinner at Woodberry Kitchen too.)

So the walls in here were cracking a lot all over and we had a problem with mold growing on part of the wall. We'd wash it with bleach and it would go away for months and slowly creep back up. With no exhaust ventilation and layers matte paint, plaster and wall paper, the combination was not aging well. You can't see so well in this before shot, but that wall straight ahead is not doing so well.



So we got to scraping and I worked away removing the loose bits and discovering multiple layers of wall paper and other unknown substances below. We sealed off the door with plastic to contain everything so as not to get lead out and about in the house.  That also keeps all airflow out and so major muggy sweaty yuckiness ensued.



We could have stopped here and just gone for the post war torn Bosnian bathroom motif, but onward we went anyway.  Little A decided to paint the cheap looking wood finish cabinets and the brass light fixture white. It would take a few coats to get there. Kilz on the walls, Kilz on the under sink cabinet. After we got everything primed we painted a light blue on the drywall walls surrounding the shower and decided that the war torn walls required a textured finish to hide the mess I made chipping off all the loose stuff. Getting it smooth again would have been pretty near impossible and given our tight schedule and fondness for textures this was clearly the way to go.



We used joint compound with trowels and scrapers to create a random Tuscan Plaster like effect. Your not really supposed to use joint compound over plaster but I figured a couple coats of kilz over the painted plaster and crossing my fingers would be a foolproof course of action. (If it fails we will be calling in the pros next time.)




Little A picked up a new BIG mirror for the vanity as we had one of those cheapo depot ones that is the ugly brown wood and triptych divided mirror doors on it. So his one has no storage but we have another storage unit over the loo and are keeping bits and pieces in there. Painted all the textured areas an almost-white-but-slightly-blue color and got everything done it time (barely) to go pick up our boy and get back to the normal routine. It's hard to take pictures of our little bathroom but here are a couple completed shots. The big mirror does help in that regard!

Thanks!

Here is a little doodle I worked up as an idea for a thank you card. I plan on making these available for purchase soon, so I'll post the link to that once I do.


Available as a card for purchase here.

Love

Happy Valentines Day everyone!
I drew this for my wonderful wife on her birthday this year. I'm so proud of her and thankful to have her by my side. Not to mention this little bugger too:



I also made heart friendly vegan pancakes this weekend. They were quite good. Here is the recipe:

1 Cup Flour (All purpose)
1 Cup Almond Meal (Trader Joes)
3.5 Tsp Baking Powder
1 1/4 Cup Rice Milk
1 Tbsp Flaxseed Meal (Trader Joes)
3 Tbs Water
1/4 Cup Olive Oil

1. Mix Flax meal and water and let stand for 2 minutes (This is the egg substitute, alternatively you could use a couple Tbsps of organic "no sugar / fructose syrup added" apple sauce)
2. Wisk together remaining dry ingredients
3. Mix together wet ingredients.
4. Make a well in the dry bowl and pour wet into it. Mix until just combined.
5. 1/4 cup per cake into a pan over medium heat.

The olive oil makes them taste very buttery even without butter. I ate them plain and they were delicious. But top with fruit or berries for added yumminess. These will have more of a fluffy cakey consistency than a typical pancake. They are slightly more fragile so flip them gently.

Signs of my Time

So aside from the occasional doodle, drawing and other designs I post here on a regular basis, most of my time is spent playing with letters. That's right I elected years ago to pursue a fun and exciting career in signs. Click the photo below to view some of the work I've been a part of the last several years at Chesapeake Sign.

Self Portrait of the Artist as a Memory of a Rock Star

This piece is actually a culmination of 20 years of work. I started with a couple a drawings from my high school sketch book. One was a psychedelic portrait of Jimmi Hendrix and the other a study for a self portrait. I scanned these two drawings and overlaid them together in Photoshop. Along with a third image for which some back story is appropriate.

In high school my intrigue and enthusiasm about various rock stars led to me playing music and attempting to be a rock star myself. A couple years or so after high school I joined an indie "conspiracy rock" group called The Penny Regime. My "audition" was an impromptu sitting in with them at a live gig at EJ Bugs in Fells Point. I sat in on drums and having no drum sticks, played with coat hangers and rolled up City Papers. I continued playing in this band for 7 years, switching to bass after the first couple. In 2010 we had a reunion show at The Ottobar and Mike "Cheech" Simmons took some photos of our set. I used one of those photos as an additional overlay to create the final composite image used as the basis for this drawing. The drawing itself is on a piece of paper from the same high school sketch book. The "penny regime" scrawled in the top corner was written there way back in the late 1990s when I first started playing in the group.

When viewed from a close perspective the original two older drawings are more prominent. But when viewed from a greater distance of about 10 feet (or as a thumbnail on screen) the newer reunion show photo image comes more into focus as the older fade into memory.

This piece was inspired by and created for the exhibition Self Portrait as a Rock Star at the Current Gallery on Jan 28, 2011.
More Info : www.facebook.com/home.php#!/event.php?eid=114089415311952

Current Gallery Website

Mike's original photo is here: www.flickr.com/photos/haileysimmons/4656294495/in/faves-8...

Below are the three separate source images side by side.