Epoch

In the fields of chronology and periodization, an epoch (from Greek Εποχή epohi meaning "era") means an instance in time chosen as the origin of a particular era. The "epoch" then serves as a reference point from which time is measured.

Over the last few months, my wife and I have been preparing for the arrival of our son. One of the tasks that Joanne gave to me was filling this empty wall, in the baby’s room, with a nice wall mural.


My first idea was to create a fun image with rolling hills and silly dinosaurs. I thought that it would tew kewt to have a dinosaur head poking through the clouds, with the dino’s head bent down while he took a bite of a rainbow!


Jo’ wanted me to paint a mural design filled with lions, hippos and banana trees with monkeys.


After a few weeks of chit-chat, we were no further ahead with an agreement. One day, I was working on a different art project and I found myself ‘googling’ for images of turtles… and then I became inspired!

http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/turtlebookink/


I found a great image and after I had used my computer to flip it around, change colours and do a few other things that I do, I had the beginnings of a plan. Jo’ thought that my ideas were great and soon the paint started flying around the room.


While all of this was going on, Joanne was preparing to have her baby shower. What a wonderful event that was! The family, friends and neighbours that filled our house that day made us realize that we would never be alone when facing the challenges that parenthood will bring.


The atmosphere reminded me of ‘the days of old’ where people and communities busied themselves with making gifts with splendid decorations. Hand knitted blankets, booties, toques and sweaters were unwrapped with a smile. My sister, knowing how passionate Jo’ and I are about recycling and reusing, presented us with many educational children’s storybooks and DVD’s that she had purchased second-hand!


Of course, some items were new purchases, but the environment was always the inspiration behind them. We received books about how to raise a ‘green’ baby, with helpful hints about healthy eating, safe cleaning products and more.


One day, I was surprised to find a large package that had been delivered to our door. It was from my best friend and his wife. They have recently had two sons and so this box was filled with many hand-me-down clothes. Ken’s wife Laura, is now a stay at home mom and she is building a business creating baby products using recycled fabrics. Many samples of her creations filled this box, as well.


Ken and I have a history of sharing music. One of his contributions to this package were a few music CD’s that he had organized, with songs ‘not just for kids’ by Johnny Cash, Jerry Garcia and John Grisham.


Even the students from my Peacebus have surprised me with fun gifts for our child. Jo’ had to put up an extra shelf (and yes – I did tell her that she should have left that task to me… but Joanne loves doing stuff like this) above the baby’s crib, to hold the toy dogs and blue bears, decorated with scarves filled with peace symbols.


So… I’m sending out a huge THANK YOU!! to everyone for their kindness, thoughtfulness and love! Joanne and I are full of appreciation!!!!


Now, I just have to get that wall mural finished…


… and there we go!


Here’s a shot of the whole wall so you can see the full image that our son will soon be enjoying.


Here’s mommy enjoying the mural. Now we just need our son to be born!


WHAT’S THIS?!!!!!!!!! Hmmmmm… something tells me that this is the beginning of another story…

Jim

Scorpion Skies

Finally!!! After nine months (on and off working, you know) I am so very excited to present my completed living room wall mural to you…

I knew that this project was going to take many months to complete so I knew that I would want to take pictures of it to show the murals progress. I also thought that it would be fun to use these photos as profile pictures on my Facebook account. And so I began…

… with the very first circle!

As each photo was taken, I slowly started moving my camera farther away…

…to show more and more of the wall space as it began to fill out.

HA! Then this idea came into my mind – to make it look like I was pushing the picture frame outwards. I think this is hilarious!!!

Oh! Goodness!! My, aren’t I getting all philosophical!?

I knew that it would get boring if I just kept pushing the border outwards so I began to think of a small story line that I could enact as the rest of the mural unfolded.

As you can see… I really started having some fun! This idea came about simply because at this point in the painting all the planets and moons had just been outlined.

I look like an ape, in this pic! Even though I had been knocked off my feet, I had to get back up again to fulfill my destiny…

…and complete this mural.

There! Done! Finally! Looks great!!!!

+ + + +

The Design…

When I began, I was inspired to create something fun and interesting – something that would explode with spontaneous life cuz I was going to start and finish it in just three days!!!!

I started thinking about a plant – very wild – painted in large sweeping strokes, slightly curved and abstract like. After I had sketched it, I noticed that the leaves of my plant kinda looked like moons – at about a quarter to full. Then I thought that if I made them into planets instead, that I could then paint their moons to kinda look like the fruit of this galactic plant! I realized that I was now designing a painting of our solar system!!

I made three rules for the design. 1) The planets would all touch – so that the finished result did look like a plant. 2) I would kinda size the planets to scale - I made 3 sizes: small, medium and large. 3) I would research and paint the same number of moons around each planet that actually exist.

The Textures…

My last blog talks about that (just scroll down this page to find that story).

The Title…

Many surprises presented themselves during the creation of this mural. Things that I had not original thought of, but realized their significance, after the fact! Noticing the ‘fingerprints’ in the planets is just one example – with the related connection to the Creator of all of life… which seems fitting in a painting of this nature.

The title for this painting was born of a similar experience. Once all the planets had been outlined with a few rows of paint, I stepped back and noticed something interesting.

The planets looked like a scorpion! Jupiter and Saturn – the two largest planets – look like the body of the scorpion… body and feet. The scorpion is walking around the outer ring of the sun, cuz only two feet are touching it (the only two points touching the outer ring) and the other two feet are in the process of continuing the walk.

Mars looks like the joining link – joining the rest of the tail with the body. Mercury is the tip (small stinger) of the tail and Venus and Earth are the tail. Uranus is the neck of the scorpion and Neptune is the head. Pluto is the mouth and it’s offset from the middle of the head cuz it’s leaning in closer to you to whisper something marvelous and mind expanding into your ear!!!!

Since the planets exist in the ‘skies’ and the planets look like a ‘scorpion’ you can see how I created this painting’s title. It’s also very fitting to have this being in my home cuz Joanne is a Scorpio, so in a way I painted this with subconscious thoughts about my wife… which is always a good thing!

Thanks for sharing these many experiences with me.

I hope that you have enjoyed this project!!!

Jim

Before The Finale

I’m sooooo excited to share these next two stories with you!!! My living room wall mural project is finally finished! My next story will talk about where the idea for the design came from and how it evolved into the finished painting, and this story will not.


First, since it’s been over four months since my first story about this project, I thought I’d suggest that we all read that story by linking… here - http://bitsandpeaces08.blogspot.com/2010/02/making-our-house-home.html.

Since the first story talked about the textures that were created for the sun in this painting, I am now going to share the story of the texture that was created for the planets…

… the sun was finished – and it took forever!!! – so when I began thinking about the texture that I would use to paint the planets I tried to think of anything that would be quicker than the time it took to paint the sun!

I had to create a texture that would compliment the other few textures, as well. So, I decided that if I started with a simple wiggly line, but branched at one point so that a ‘Y’ shape is formed, and just painted more wiggly lines…

…in contour with the first one…

…that eventually the space will be filled and it would look nice!

And I was correct… in a certain way. The smaller planets did fill in rather quickly, but – Man oh man! – the last two planets took me a very long time.

I’ve had many people make the comment that the planets look like humongous fingerprints and I thought one step farther and suggested that they were the Big Guy’s fingerprints, as He was the creator of all the planets!

+ + + +

One day, Joanne leaned over the couch that I sit behind as I’m painting my picture and she asks, “What R U doing?” and I reply, “I’m getting vaywee dizzy!” And then we chat about the lines and all that stuff and I ask her to tell me what she feels when she looks at the lines. She tilts her head and looks and then replies, “It makes me vaywee dizzy, too! My eyes hurt!” And then she leaves the room…

HA!

Jim

Buying A Canvas Would Have Been Cheaper

In the beginning there was the backside of my house.


There were also some water drainage issues.


Even though it hadn’t rained here in over ten days, there was still a backup of water in the existing drainage lines.


Bush and small tree roots had punctured the lines and now water was running down our foundation wall.


I cleared away over three feet of dirt and soil by digging steps.


I separated the soil from the dirt and these piles grew very large!


The Robins thought that I was digging them a fast food worm restaurant. They were great company while I dug and dug.


And dug and dug…


No matter how busy I get, I always try to regard the world around me. Sometimes, while I’m digging, I’ll look up to see a flock of birds flying by, or I’ll spend a moment looking at a fun shaped cloud in the sky. Yes – even the shadow of my Maple tree on the back wall of bricks has a certain artistic value that I like to appreciate while I’m working.


Finally, after three days of five-hour shifts ‘The Trench’ is finished. Soon, I’ll be able to paint my wall mural! But first, I’m going to have a little rest…


… so I can watch the rainstorm pass overhead.


I’m glad that it didn’t rain until after I had finished my painting. After less than one hour the black rainclouds had moved on.


I needed to make sure that my canvas was clean, so I used a wire brush to scrub all the dirt off my wall.


I also had to smash away some of the parging that had become loose because of the water drainage problems.


Then a ‘concrete patch’ was used to seal all of the walls cracks and holes.


As you can see, all of this work has me rather excited! As soon as my repairs have had time to dry I’ll be able to cover the entire wall with a sealant paint.


This special waterproof sealant will become the canvas onto which I will create my greatest art achievement.


So… my masterpeace has begun!


Ta-da! In less than one hour my greatest artwork has come to life!!!! It just took me four and a half days to prepare.


Now that the painting was complete it was time to fill “The Trench” back in. I put in the proper type of drainage lines and surrounded the one side with lots of gravel. I put sand on the other side of the weeping tile to protect the foundation wall. Then I got a really heavy peace of metal and tampered this fill nice and flat.


I thought that the texture that was created looked pretty cool!


After each new layer of sand or soil is added, I use a rake to shape the layers kinda like triangles, so that the slopes of each layer will also assist in proper water drainage.


When I talked about sorting the fill into piles of sand or soil, I never mentioned anything about a pile of gravel. I’m wondering if any of you have been able to guess where the gravel came from?


Shhhh! Don’t tell my wife! She’d kill me if she knew what I’ve done to our driveway!!!

Jim

PS – Sometimes, when there is a hard and laborious task at hand, the work becomes enjoyable when three simple rules are followed…

1) Learn something – I learned a lot about shovels.
2) Have fun – I created an artwork that may never be seen by human eyes again. I think that’s hilarious!!!
3) Be peaceful – No rocks were harmed in the creation of this artwork.