A basement concrete floor.

This one of two TV cabinet doors. They’re lined with copper. I painted the medevil faces to keep an eye on the folks watching TV on the sofa.  The design is an interpretation of a carved wooden face in paneling in a Scandinavian estate.

Distressed Kitchen Cabinet

This is a new kitchen cabinet. The base color was a light tan. I did a stipple coat for a faux wood texture followed by random dark brown drag marks to make it look distressed. The edges were then highlighted with a black-brown. Sporadic spots of a rust-red were touched to the surface to add a little magic and to pick up the color of the other mahogany stained cabinets in the room.

The end panels have the decorative leaf pattern I designed. It was drawn on graph paper and transferred to the surface with graphite paper. It’s painted with a raw umber wash. Finally the leaves were edged with metallic silver.

In a surprising bit of synchronicity, I found and bought a copy of “Just My Type” as I was in process painting the monogram pictured above.

“Just My Type” is Simon Garfield’s captivatingly illustrated history of type.  Published last year in England, it has just been made available in the US. With great humor, he describes the creators and the first use of important fonts. We get to meet John Baskerville (Baskerville Old Face on my computer) and the despicable Eric Gill (Gill Sans.) There’s a whole chapter railing against Comic Sans. I have been a fan of graphic design and print since high school. (See previous post) For someone like me, Just My Type  is a page turner. Click here to see it on Amazon.

I stained the wooden stool using acrylic stains and an acrylic overglaze. I painted 2 identical stools—the monogram is on 2 sides, so that’s 4 monograms total. Thank goodness for Sally’s Graphite Transfer Paper. I first drew the “M” on graph paper from calligraphy sources, and transferred the drawing using the graphite paper. Since previous steps were all acrylic, I was able to use Modern Masters acrylic metallic paint. I like these acrylic products. The sheen is convincing and easy to work with, though the gold did require two coats. That didn’t bother me. I love tedium!

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This interlocking squares border was done after the floor was stained,  but before the 3 coats of poly.  It’s painted,  not inlaid. I did it over 10 years ago.  It’s held up very well.

Illuminated Manuscript

This project is a dream-come-true. I love calligraphy. I practiced all the time in high school (instead of doing math.) I would invent alphabets; leave indecipherable messages from aliens in my desk for the next student to find. Correspondence would be in a Gothic hand.

This book, one of two, is sculpted wood. I gessoed it, to build texture, and glazed it all to age before laying out the images. It will get another tea colored glaze to kill the color and age it even more, but I like it at this stage. The pages are reproductions, but I have replaced the central images with text from other sources to better suit the purpose. The books will be used to join 3 pieces of an antique frieze of biblical images. These books need to look at least a century old.

Visitors to the workshop where I am working tell me they would go insane with such tedium. I love it. There is nothing like cloistering myself in the scriptorium with coffee and a #000 brush, and an Ipod full of Bach!

I found this on drawn on my drop cloth when I returned to work. I was painting  a child’s bedroom mural. See Among the Cats. Along with this drawing I also found an open can of black paint (it was closed when I left) and a dried-up artist brush. I assume this expresses her happiness with my work, so it’s worth the sacrifice of a nice 1/4″ fitch. It could have been worse. She was very neat – and not a bad draftsman. I am going to enjoy using this dropcloth.

I once did a train mural for an 8 year old boy. I was putting the finishing touches on a six foot steam engine as he bounced on the bed giving me directions. As I finished he said, “I am going to get a pencil and a sheet of paper, and I am going to make a list of the best artists, and I am going to put Don Morgan on the very top!”

I made the list! That was the best compliment I ever had. But this heart is number 2 on my list.

I’m painting the BIG logo for  Bluezoom Advertizing with metallic paint on a brick wall in their downtown Greensboro office. Bluezoom’s Tom Woods did the time lapse and created the video. The music is by MOV. Listen to more of MOV  here: http://songsbymov.posterous.com

Check out Bluezoom here: http://www.bluezoom.bz/

I sponged this girl’s bedroom in pale greens and added a jungle greenery border around the top. But the most fun was this life-sized painting of her sitting among her favorite big cats. She is very brave. I had a good time, fur is fun to paint. It’s about 8 feet wide.

I have learned to be aware of dogs on the job site. I’ve been attacked many times, bitten twice. They don’t like me for some unknown reason. I have a dog. I like dogs. I figure I am an intruder in their home turf, so I forgive their exuberance.
Now I have a new threat to a pleasant workday. Above is a photo of a vicious ATTACK GOOSE!
(There is a nest hidden in the planter on the porch.)