Its been crazy busy as the snow continues to fall here in Pittsburgh.
 
Since we’re moving this month into our new house, we have
two houses to shovel and the typical delays accompanying a total of
some 30″ of snow in the last two weeks:

 
work that needs done,
stuff to be hauled away, stuff to be moved in, all waiting,
with the rest of this somewhat unprepared
small city, for a the roads to get better, the snow to stop falling,
a break in the action somehow so I can get on with what
I have to do.
 
Now the bright side is that what I have been able to do
waiting for the world to dig itself out is paint–
well, prep for painting and paint, taking a poor condition
second floor and making it sealed, clean and safe for us to sleep in.
 
People who’ve worked with me know I actually do get excited about an excellent
prep job, and I’m proud to say that given time alotted (actually scraped somewhat painfully from the childcare schedule),
and poor conditions we started with, the repaired and fresh walls and ceiling have really came out great.
 
so I’ll be posting some iPhone pix of progress sequence here next, but I want to
give a shout out to one of my favorite products here that just got written up in the
almighty New York Times.
 
I’ve already been using the brilliant, zero-VOC Transitional Primer from AFM Safecoat on
what I call “welding” all the different surfaces together into a decent “canvas” on which to paint, in this case:
 

• previously painted drywall
• previously painted plaster
• previously painted pine/waterbased
• previously painted pine/leadbased/
• raw poplar
• raw pine
• lots of acrylic caulking
• fresh drywall
• fresh mud
• waterbased catalyzed resin

AFM Safecoat paints are completely green, non-toxic products, and as the article points out, even smell good out of the can. They do a whole line of interior paints, and also a line of all-natural wood finishes that I’ve used extensively on custom hardwood picture frames the past few years in San Diego.
 
Highly recommended from personal experience and will be generally available in Pittsburgh soon.
 

I’ve never taken one of my finished paintings apart before– stretched, folded, rolled, shipped, framed, unframed, cut off the bars, glued down, all of these violences I have done to my creations but this was a new one on me. Preparing the vertical blinds as blinds after completing the painting was kind of anticlimactic as an artist, though essential as a craftsperson and makes for some unique pictures.

first round of blind preparation

vertical blinds on the table

the wicked surface

This last picture shows pretty well the second and third levels of hell, I mean challenge, of painting the vertical blind surface with a coherent image (and not just an abstracted pattern). Not only was this mural painted on 122 overlapping “pieces” which have to line up properly for the image to be clear, but each piece is machined with 1/8″ vertical grooves and extruded from plastic to boot. Prep, paint adhesion and just trying to put down a straight, beautiful line (or a thousand of them, we are talking about drawing architecture here) were all special cases requiring more thought and attention than usual.

I waded through some more photos of the mural project this morning here in Las Vegas hotel room before hitting the road again and found some fun detail shots that give a good idea of both how much detail I actually put in this mural and how much extra attention was required to make clean beautiful marks on this challenging surface ( I have some more technical type pics on the blinds themselves that I’ll write about when I’m ready to relive that part– for now, I’d rather concentrate on the finished product, which makes the painting process look relatively easy and painles!)

San Diego federal buildings on left mural panel

Hyatt buildings with Coronado Island and Bridge behind

Electra residential building with Pt.Loma & Coronado in the background, as well as one of all time favorite sky painting moments

Broadway with NBC and AT&T buildings on the left mural panel

.. now its time to get to the real business at hand!

Cityscape mural sample

This sample is on board approximately 30″ x 40″ using the full scale drawing prepared for the final surface. The colors are close to the desired goal- I’ll be making a few adjustments- and the style and atmosphere of the painting right on!

More dramatic pictures of full scale process coming soon!

• Woodley already has a sack in first preseason quarter! #
• Publishing Test: http://bit.ly/3FRXwh #
• testing out a different connection… #
• Lovely morning painting with artist @jessicasiemens on the Cafe Mundo mural! #

In all the rush of the decision to move and the finishing of San Diego projects and commitments, I forgot to post any pictures of the show of my sky paintings that continues at Joe Bedford’s Coalesce Gallery on India Street in Little Italy.

Paintings by John Hiemstra, furniture by Joe Bedford

John Hiemstra and Joe Bedford at Coalesce Gallery, Little Italy

• my last online #business #wordpress classes in #SanDiego before the move are this Friday and Saturday http://bit.ly/1G5UsN #
• finished drawing mural this morning, then computer all day. Join me for painting & coffee tomorrow morning! 121 Juniper #SanDiego 92101 #lt #
• I like this: @mymassappeal RT @amandadiva: "My inspiration is ART-Because without ART we're just stuck with reality."- Daniel Robert Lynch #
• now glad I read it- nicely to the point! @copyblogger Why Parents Write More Persuasive Copy | Copyblogger http://bit.ly/dsp02 #
• gotta read this @NadiraHaniff Why Parents Write More Persuasive Copy http://ow.ly/jBLP #
• #Facebook #FriendFeed to take on Twitter? http://bit.ly/2FZtV #
• RT @sdmetalsmith updated #jewelry studio moving specials page http://bit.ly/xS4T4 polished up more sterling pieces found cleaning the bench! #

• RT @johnlacey I love watching people make stuff. It doesn't matter what it is. Pottery, dance music, a painting, a birdbath. Fascinating. #
• way to go! @karensloan Received a great commission for a large painting today. Can breath a little easier now ; ) #
• so true @bananica15 I've been doing so much painting lately, but the plate I mix the colors on looks the coolest of all. Go figure. #
• also, wife @sdmetalsmith posted Twitter-only specials on her hand forged #jewelry http://bit.ly/xS4T4 as part of our studio-moving…. #
• thnx @gewinnerin @_inmarket @PatriceErickson @Pesamob and @dmq26 for recent kindness- follow these people please, they are too kind! #

• posted #painting video of my return to sky painting http://bit.ly/10pz04 in the new studio thnx again studio mate and rockstar @jen_guerin #