How to Draw a Holiday Window

After nearly two weeks of painting, we are almost done. As of today, we have two and a half Skywalks left to paint. The half is because I have one skywalk that Susan and Laura have painted snowflakes on but I haven't got any skating figures up yet. I'm going to take care of that tonight.

In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to describe the process of creating beautiful Holiday Window Scenes for fun and profit. Mostly profit!

Start out with a window and some kind of design. When one is painting skywalks, it is not hard to find a window. Suddenly, they are everywhere. You see them in your sleep after a while.

I use tempera paint. That's the water based paint that comes as a powder that you used in Grade School to paint posters and other students. It cleans off very easily with soap and water. But be warned, If your window is exposed to the elements at all, a good rain will really mess up your artwork.

I started this process by free handing my design from a picture, but I found it was much faster to create a large stencil on butcher paper and then trace my figure using a white China Marker...a grease pencil.
This year I found a water based Spray Paint that cleans off as easily as the tempera. I spray the image with paint as evenly as I can and then roller it out to fill in the gaps. Because of the free form style of this particular design, I don't have to worry about staying within the lines. In fact, the over spray adds a nice touch to the design.
Once I've got the whole image filled and it has had time to dry, I come back and hit it with some highlights. It's just a line that I paint down the leading or trailing edge of the image that helps define an arm or leg and makes the image a bit more interesting.
Finally, I outline the image in white. Again, the style of these figures allows me to be inexact with the outline.

Now that I have the system down, I can paint 12 different figures in about three hours. I usually finish before Susan.

So there you have it . . . a complete guide to Holiday Window painting. Don't even think about invading my territory.

A Reason for my Absence from Blogging

I haven't posted anything here in a while because Susan and I have been busy with another project that has kept us out of the house. . .almost completely for over a week.

As a Starving Artist and Cartoonist, I have always looked for new and different ways for me to express myself in Art and make a buck while doing it. I have been painting Holiday Windows for over 20 years now. It's a great way to make some extra money just at a time of year when I can really use it.

Susan and I have had a deal going with a local Real Estate company for the last few years to paint some Christmas characters on office buildings and one of the skywalks downtown.

This year, my name was referred to the office of the Downtown Spokane Partnership, which is a local booster organization that promotes downtown. There is a big Ice Skating Championship coming up in January and they wanted to promote that in a fun way that would also help decorate up the downtown area.

So they asked us to paint a wintery skating theme in ALL THE DOWNTOWN SKYWALKS. For those keeping track, there are 15 skywalks downtown.

We started painting last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and we have been going strong ever since. To date we have completed 11 skywalks. I don't care to divuldge the amount of money we are making in this process other than to say it will be a very Merry Christmas.

The Final Leaf

Did I say 28 bags of leaves. Ha Ha HA! I could have made it to the Dump in one trip if I only had 28 bags. I ended up making two trips. I hauled a total of 47 bags for a grand total of 1800 pounds. The part that really gets me is that after all the rain we've had, I probably paid a tidy sum of cash to haul and dump 700 pounds of water.

But at least that chore is done for the year. Thanks to my friend Jerry for the loan of his Gas Guzzling Chevy Mombo-Cruiser Deluxe.

Now we can move on to other more pressing jobs. Remember the house. We were doing some remodeling on the house. But now that we are entering the Christmas Holiday season, that will take a back seat. . . . . again!

As an artist, one of the good paying side jobs I have been doing for years is painting Holiday Scenes on windows of local businesses and the occassional house. Susan and I have been doing just enough the past couple of years to give us some extra spending money at Christmas.

It appears we are going to have a very Merry Christmas this year because I have just landed the gig of painting in ALL the skywalks downtown. If you've been keeping track of the skywalks, there are 14 of them.

There is a big skating competition coming to town in February and they want to hype it as much as possible. That will be the theme we will be carrying through the whole downtown skywalk system. Did I mention there are 14 of them?!

Yard Maintenance Part Deux

Susan and I have completed the Leaf Pick Up Program for this year. It took most of Sunday and it didn't help that the wind was swirling around us with Gale Force Intensity. You rake a pile of leaves and then before you finish stuffing them in a bag, they are spread out across the lawn again. Now I have to spend another Sunday hauling my 28 bags out to the Compost Pile at the Waste to Energy Incinerator Plant.

Sunday Morning Fun

One of the nice features of living next to a city park is that there is a certain "Entertainment Cache" that one would not ordinarily expect. There is always the crazy antics of the various animals in the neighborhood. The squirrels here are quite active, somewhat friendly, and always very entertaining when the cats are stalking them. The cats think they are being cleaver and stealthy and the squirrels know where they are at all times. I've never seen a cat get even close to a squirrel.

This morning as I let the cats out and grabbed the morning paper, I noticed this guy out in the park. He was in his early twenties. He was unusual because he was wearing nothing but his pants, hanging low enough on his waist to expose his underwear and a bit of butt crack. It has been raining for days and it can't be more than 40 degrees right now, so this is definately an odd sight. He's kind of walking aimlessly through the park and then stops and then walks in a different aimless direction.

Suddenly, a darts over toward the edge of the park where he sees a shoe. He puts it on and stomps into the intersection where another shoe sits. Further up the street he sees a clump of something that I assume is a shirt. At that point he is out of my view. I didn't really feel like walking off the porch in my bathrobe and slippers to further investigate. Then I would be the odd sight.

I can only surmise that this guy has been dumped in the park by his friends after a night of extreme alcoholic consumption and then, being the good friends that they are, strip him of most of his clothes. Ah, to be twenty and stupid again.

I'm not feeling terribly bright this morning myself. I went to a hockey game last night and then to the re-opening of a local bar that closed 15 months ago due to a fire in the building it was located in. We had a few beers and I'm feeling them now.

By the way, Susan did some priming yesterday. We're ready for a second coat.

The Efficacy of Power Tools

The weather dried out enough on Sunday for Susan and I to get out into the yard for some much needed Grounds Tending. We decided to leave the leaves until Halloween was over in order to create the proper "Autumn Atmosphere". Unfortunately, it rained like Noah all week long and left us with lots and lots and LOTS of wet, decaying leaves.

I had been looking forward to this Fall and the Leaf Eradication Procedure because earlier this year, I had obtained a Power Leaf Vaccuum. I have had only a couple of opportunities to use it and it seemed to work pretty well.

Well, I can tell you that it is totally useless if the leaves are plentiful and wet. We had both those things going for us. I tried using my lawn mower as well but once again, if the leaves are plentiful and WET, it too is useless.

It all came down to manual labor, which Susan was doing all through my attempts to use power tools.

The front yard is complete and we have many bags of leaves. I would estimate that we must have about 120 bushels. That's pretty good for a .24 acre parcel of land. Heck, in Canada, that would be over 700 hectars of maple leafs. (Is it leafs or leaves?) Now we have to wait for the leaves to fall in the back and side yards. Then we will do it all again.

I'm trying to remember why we moved here.

Post Halloween Depression

I would like to say that we've been working on the house but that would be a lie. We have just been winding down from Halloween. Today was Garbage Day and I was able to get about five or six of our 27 pumpkins into the garbage can before it was overflowing. Sunday is our one day off together so we will be doing the bulk of our Halloween Clean-up and Decoration Stowage at that time. I also have a crap load of wet leaves to rake up. "Sunday is going to be fun", he said with his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Well, at least Halloween is out of the way for another year and now we can concentrate on the house...and Thanksgiving....and Christmas....followed by New Years, Valentine's Day, Ground Hog Day and St Swithins Day. Perhaps I should consider becoming a Druid. Do they have holidays to contend with?!

Halloween Statistics

The early returns are in and all the numbers indicate that it was another big year of Trick or Treating around the park. The only way I can keep track is by how much candy we start with and how much is left at the end of the night. I ended up with none. The first kids started showing up just after 5:00 and we were turning people away by 7:45 P.M. That means we had gone through over 700 pieces of candy in less than three hours. It seems hard to believe but the traffic was pretty thick all night long.

Officially Historic

I thought it was time that I got an official picture posted of our Official Historic Marker which officially proclaims to the world (or at least the people walking by) that this house is on the Official Register of Historic Places. You know, I think that George Washington once slept here. I can tell you for sure and quite officially that I have slept here.

All of the houses around the park are on the Register and most of the houses have this same plaque posted somewhere near the front door. We haven't had one and just recently purchased it as a Wedding Anniversary present to ourselves.

Stairway Update

Let's talk about what little work IS occurring here at the Ranch. We have been working on the stairway. We are kind of stuck on exactly how to proceed. At some point in the past, the bannister was changed to raise the handrail. In doing so, we have two different spindle designs holding up the bannister railing. I would like this to be uniform but we have had very little luck finding spindles that match the ones we have and like. That leads us to the possibility of having them made. I will not go into all the details, but I think we have found a guy with a Duplicating Lathe that will manufacture the 30 to 40 spindles we need. What we don't know yet is the price and that will be the deciding factor in whether we preceed that way.

Here are a couple of pictures to see our progress. On the left is the stairway that we started with. On the right, is the stairway as it is today. You will notice that we have removed all the wallpapering on the wall. That's where we have been skim coating and all that remains now is a little touch up of a couple of areas that insist on cracking and then some more primer.










The most dramatic feature is the wanescoating going up the stairway. We are going to cap it with railing and then stain it the dark walnut color.

You can also see that we have been trying to sand the steps and remove the stain. The problem is that the stain doesn't want to be sanded. We've got it a little on the sides but it's holding strong in the middle of the steps. I can't wait to see it when we're done...if we ever get there.

Research Project Results

I pretty much struck out yesterday with my research project. I went through all of the Sunday Spokeman-Review's for 1909. They were in the habit in those days of printing pictures of newly completed houses. It was amazing to see huge three story houses built for $5,000.

Anyway, I was not able to find any pictures of our house. Then I went to the Museum to look through the collection of historic photos they have. Supposedly, they have the complete archives from Libby Photographers, THE major photographer from the early years in Spokane. Well, I found the collection to be pretty sparse. It was much better organized than I had been led to believe, but again, no picture of OUR HOUSE. I'm sorry to be selfish here but that's what I'm looking for.

The Heart of the Problem

We've had a bit of a setback in working on the house in the form of health issues. My health issues. I woke up Saturday morning with a familiar discomfort in my chest. I woke up Susan and told her it was time to visit the Emergency Room. This feeling has been building for a while and I had an appointment to see my Cardiologist on Monday for a Stress Test, but my body couldn't wait.

I had an Angioplasty procedure on Sunday and they placed a stent in one of my arteries. Now I'm as good as your average 80 year old and I have a week off from work.

This is not my first brush with heart problems. I think it's boring to talk about so I'll just say I had a mild heart attack about 12 years ago, followed by a double by-pass about eight years ago.

So now I feel fine (except that I wear out easily) and I have a week off. I have done a few little projects around the house but nothing that requires a lot of exertion. Today, I'm going to the museum and the library to do some research on the house.

My main goal is to find a picture of the house around the time that it was built. The museum has a large haystack of photographs from the that time. The trick will be in finding this needle.

Busy Social Season

It's tough when you have a lot of remodeling to do yet you have a rigorous social schedule to juggle as well. That's where we are right now.

Halloween is a big Holiday for Susan and I so it's a good thing we moved to a place like Corbin Park. Halloween is a big deal here. It's not that a bunch of the houses get all decked out. A few do and we are one of them. However, the park has somehow developed a reputation as a good place to Trick or Treat. I think parents have developed that rep because it's easy for them to drop their kids off on one end of the park and then they go around the park and the parents are done for the night.

We had over 600 kids last year. We know that because our next door neighbors kept track. I know that because, at one point, all I did was stand at the door and pass out candy to the continous line of monsters, fairys, pirates and ghouls streaming up and down our porch.

We also have planned a Halloween dinner with a group of our neighbors for the night before Halloween. This will be a party for the adults. It will be a progressive dinner at three different houses. Susan and I have offered up ours as the Dinner House. Before us is the Appetizer House and after us is the Dessert House. We put invitations out to every house on the park. I haven't heard yet how many people have responded but I expect that it will be the same small group of partiers that attend all these types of functions.

We were busy last weekend with a trip to Canada for our Anniversary. We drank a lot of wine and spent a lot of Canucks, the offical legal tender of Canada. Their prices up there are much higher than in the states. Gas costs almost four canucks a gallon but they sell it by the Celsius so it is hard to convert. Their wine costs lots of canucks so to soften the blow, we drank about a kilometer of wine.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that we haven't done a lot of work on the house lately.

What's Under the Stairs

I spend a lot of my remodeling time looking at the way things are in this house and asking, "Why is this set up the way it is?" Then I start to tear into it and I discover why it is the way it is.

Just such an episode arose tonight while working on the stairs. I have known for sometime that the bannister on the stairs is not the way it was originally built. I think it had to be raised to a certain level to meet code when this house was converted into a group home. They did what they could to make the change, make it look okay and do it for as little money as possible.

The details of what has been done to the stairs are way too complex for me to describe here so I will go with pictures.

On the left is the staircase as it was when we moved in. On the right, is the staircase after tonights endeavors.

You can see that the wonderful woodwork and trim was covered by a sheet of wood paneling that was then wallpapered.

Return of the Blogger

I haven't written anything on the house in over a week because we haven't done any work on the house in over a week so there was nothing to report on the house for over a week so consequently, I haven't written anything on the house in over a week.

That all changed today when we commenced to painting. To be more specific, we commenced to priming. We have to get everything primed before we can start our next step, floor sanding. That will create a tremendous amount of messy dustiness and we want the walls sealed before the messy dustiness gets everywhere, including our nooks and our crannys.

Here I am in the stairway after finishing todays priming. We ran out of our 5 gallon bucket of primer before we could finish the whole landing. I got the whole ceiling done and most of the walls. I have to finish the walls in the stairway. I was able to do that little bit of wall above me with the last of the primer. I'll be getting another 5 gallon bucket tomorrow. The bare drywall really sucks up the primer. I still have to get primer on that back hallway on the right and the wall out of the picture on the left. That wall is a bitch because it is soooooooo tall...over 16 feet. That's where my special $400.00 ladder starts to pay for itself.

What I Wish I Would Have Said

We haven't done much on the house this week so I haven't had anything to write here. But I do have this.

I'm laying in bed, sound asleep when the phone rings. I stumble to the other room where the phone is and notice it's about 2:30. I answer and the guy on the phone says, " I saw what you did and I know who you are."

I paused a moment and said, "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah!"

"So you saw me with the Homeless Man?"

"Yeah!"

"You saw me kill him?"

"Um...yeah."

"You saw me cut off his nuts and stuff them down his throat?"

"Uh huh!"

"So you know that I would have no reservations about doing even worse to some Shit for Brains Scumbag who calls me at two-thirty in the morning?!"

"Click"

That's what I wish I would have said.

Instead, I kind of stood there in a haze and said, "Who is this?" Then he hung up. Then I lost the next thirty minutes of sleep running that first scenerio through my head and wishing I had the presence of mind for that witty banter.

I need to script my life better!

Storm Window Follow Up

It looks like all my worries and angst over fixing the Storm Windows was a waste of time. I took the windows back, and while they were concerned over how the far off the measurement was, the fine folks at Tormino's Window and Sash said they will have no trouble selling them as is and it will be about a month before the re-ordered, correcftly measured windows come in.

I went to the effort of taking a picture of the window and writing down all the critical measurements. Then I printed out two copies...one for me and one for them. Now I have definite proof of the dimensions I want. I should have had this last time. I'm learning...slowly.

In the meantime, we recovered the cushion on the window bench in the Dining Room last night. There was nothing wrong with the old one other than it not a color picked by Susan. Now the thing blends and matches very nicely with the over-all decor of the Dining Room, giving one a soothing and pleasing sense of well being as well as an urgent need to eat dinner and then get out of our house. Call it "Structuring the length of a Guests' stay through Decor Management."
It's a very subtle science that we are inventing as we go along.

Perhaps there is a book in it.

Beautiful Sundays & Bad Measurements

Indian Summer is currently in full swing. It got wet and sloppy last week and cooled way down. Then Autumn began at 9:03 PM Friday and the weather has been great ever since

I planned on getting a lot done but I had one major project I really wanted to complete. I ordered two combination Storm/Screen Windows for the Master Bedroom back in July sometime. I took the measurements to this locally owned Glass shop that has always done right by me. In fact, the owner is a High School buddy of my Dad's.

I finally was able to pick the windows up back on Friday, September 15th but I haven't had a chance to install them until yesterday.

You can see the picture to the left here that shows the window in all it's over-sized glory.
Yup! It's too big. They measure 36" x 58" and they should be 36" x 53". I don't know what exactly happened but somewhere that three was transformed into an eight and there is no way I can make it work at five inches over.

At this point, I cannot say who is to blame. I do not have my original note that I took in and I don't have the form that my Window Guy wrote the info down on. My only hope is that this will not be a huge hassle to fix. I'll be going to Tormino's tomorrow to discuss the remedy.

In the meantime, my comedy of household errors goes on.

First Response

I am excited to report that I have received my first comments from other people which means that this is actually being seen by someone other than me.

The first comment was from Dave, the former owner of our house. He said he liked what we had done in the Dining Room. That was a bit of a relief because he was very proud of his Venetian Plaster job that he did in the Dining Room and the Living Room. I admit he did a good job but it was a little too dark for us. Don't worry, Dave. We're not touching the Living Room.

The other comment I got was from Piss-Ant Spammer who wants me to know that I can earn extra money as a Secret Shopper. HEY SPAM FOR BRAINS! EAT SHIT & DIE!!!

The last thing I want is the purity of the Blogging experience sullied by some Dork with a computer but no life. And pal, I don't believe for a minute that you earned $900.00 last month being a Secret Shopper. I don't even think your Welfare Check was that big.

Now that I have tainted todays post with Gutter Language, I would like to present the
Waverly Vocabulary Place.

Todays Word: he-ge-mo-ny (n) hi-'je-m&-nE: preponderant influence, especially of one nation over others.

While the Wife's Away . . .

Okay, before I even get started...where's my drink. I left it downstairs. I'll be right back!










Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh! That's better!

Now, let's commence, shall we.

Susan is working tonight. She has to be down at the Arena for some concert. It almost got canceled due to poor ticket sales but they must have had a surge at the end or a radio station gave a bunch away. All I know is that she has to wait on a bunch of ungrateful hip-hoppers for three hours and listen to some Rapper who can't even fill a thousand seats. That pretty much sounds like one version of Hell.

In the meantime, I am going to do some remodeling work. I have some new hardware for the windows but I have to patch some old holes first. Then I have some mudding to do in the stairway, the landing and the bedroom. There are some other little items but I'm burning daylight and I have to get going.

I'm not going to sit here and Blog all night.