Sea House Warming Hut: Begin Chairs

2015/10/162015/10/1810 Comments

I had a hard time getting up this morning. I was up late last night working, my husband is away in Minneapolis on a business trip, and it was densely foggy, but bright outside.

I made a deal with myself to work on the Sea House Warming Hut fireside chairs in short segments interspersed with my *real* work. This is a downside of having one’s office and one’s studio in the same place. Chairs won. And that’s what’s bad about me.

I decided to build Jane Harrop’s “Utility Fireside Chair” from her book Thirties & Forties, with just a couple of changes.

I located all the stock, cut out the pieces and labeled them, and put them in a project tray.

Then I did a whole hour of *real* work. What happened after that is kind of a flow blur, but I realized the light was changing outside.

Here’s the chair frame, unstained. I added the little crossbar to support the back. The legs and stretchers are only 1/8-inch (3mm) square, so the whole assembly is held together with wee pins and glue. I opted to leave the heads on.

And here it is stained, with the beloved Minwax Classic Gray 271.

I could not resist adding some self-leveling gliders, because after all, these chairs will be moved around the fireplace a lot.

With the upholstered cushions, in luscious peacock blue linen.

I brought the new chair up to the living roof (moss don’t mind) along with a sketchbook to continue my *real* work, while watching the sun set into the foggy horizon. Sometimes there’s a fine line — or no line at all — between work and ideas and how things get done.

Sea House Warming Hut: Guest Books, A Sunset… and A Big Butt

2015/10/062015/10/0710 Comments

Remember this photo? Barbara W. had sent a marvelous gift box of thoughtful miniature wonder, and I was inspired by the open butterfly book ( by Jennifer Hatt of lookingglassminiature.com) to make a guest book for the Warming Hut.

The page spread is set in 1.5 point type :)

I logged myself in twice, in blue and black ink.

I call these cheater books, because the pages don’t open or turn, but I did glue the signatures.

I was going for a Moleskine notebook sort of look with black covers. I also made an open sketchbook with pages being ruffled by the wind, as well as a closed volume. There are no more photos of the process, though, as my husband called me outside to view the rather spectacular sunset. Here is a photo of him taking photos of the sky :)

That’s the Pacific Ocean, looking pink as bubblegum :)

Anyway, there are the three books I made. I used a thin silk cord to make the page markers. And doesn’t the Peacock rug look splendid with the poppy-colored furniture?

Instead of making a stand for the guest book, I made this today:

A big cigarette butt. It’s 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) in diameter and about 24 inches (61 cm) long (unstubbed). I am especially happy with the “tobacco” — dried up leaves from my tomato plants, preserved moss, black tea (Yorkshire Gold) and paint, and a lot of glue.

(I volunteer with Pacifica Beach Coalition. This butt will be part of a display to build awareness that cigarette butts are *not* biodegradable. Did you know that cigarette butts discarded in parking lots, along sidewalks and in street gutters miles from the coast inevitably make their way through storm drains, creeks and rivers to the beach and the ocean, where they continue to leach toxic chemicals? Yuck.)

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof Planted

2015/09/262015/09/2612 Comments

The base plantings for the living roof are complete. Yay me!

I finished it up today, after marching with Pacifica Beach Coalition in the annual Fog Festival, dressed as a bee and playing a kazoo. (Our original plan was to kazoo Flight of the Valkyries, but that proved a bit too ambitious.) For those of you that know me less well, marching in a half-mile parade before hundreds, if not thousands of spectators, in a bee costume, could not be further from what I might typically choose to do. All that brave eye contact and self-in-presence! I celebrate with you, and you with me: we pick up trash on the beach, and our individual and collective efforts matter. Thank you.

Who knows what’s next?

Never say never. Say yes, instead?

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof Growth

2015/09/216 Comments

To get more use from the many bags of preserved moss, I decided to shred the lower stemmy parts into a coarse scatter, and use that to plant around the taller rounded mounds. I practically got carpal tunnel from snip, snip, snip snipping.

The scatter also adds more texture and another level of growth.

This morning I realized I didn’t like the straw-colored moss clumps, and got out watercolors to green them up, like a photosynthesis devi. That was so satisfying I added some darker tones into the other plantings as well.

I let two of the red poppies sprout, but have determined they wouldn’t survive on the windswept roof. I still like them as flowers, though, so into a bucket for the flower stand (or as starts for planting) they will go.

Sea House Warming Hut: Living Roof

2015/09/142015/09/1410 Comments

Wanting to ensure even plant color distribution with a random appearance, I changed up how I’ve been “planting” the living roof. I’m going through vast quantities of moss because I prefer the fine rounded tops more than the stemmy lower growth, and colors are not consistent bag to bag. This way is more fun, too.

Poppy propagation continues, with a new flavor. This punch is about 1/4-inch (6mm) — compare it to the 3/16-inch (5mm) round — and reminiscent of a pompom variation red field poppy.

Sort of. I like the way they look, and think they’ll complement the CA poppies :)

Sea House Warming Hut: International Delivery

2015/08/272015/08/2714 Comments

Whoa, everyone. It’s the end of the day. We got a surprise shipment of exquisite Canadian wineglasses, and there’s both a chilled Rosato and a Pinot Bianco to try. More landscaping can wait until tomorrow. And look, I finally found what kind of butterfly has been frequenting the poppies. Come sit with me, friend, and give thanks for the light.

Sea House Warming Hut: More Foundation Ruins

2015/08/242015/08/2410 Comments

I’ve been feeling a little detached from the Warming Hut; new projects (yay!) at work are diverting my focus.

I decided to build the remains of a circular cistern for under the hut, both as a plausible once-functional structure, and as a symbolic reservoir to catch and hold ideas :) It was fun and evocative.

But then of course… it drew attention to the barely seen but now unavoidable eyesore that is the shambling way I attached the front steps to the deck. It’s a *little* space under there — the foundation posts are 3 inches (7.62 cm) tall — and it’s torturous fitting my hands in there now, between the posts, over the boulders. It’s challenging just to get a glue bottle in and shaking spoonfuls of beach gravel. However.

So I measured and built a little wall to close off the under stairs. I wanted it old and disheveled, kind of abandoned mine shaft, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time. I *thought* about doing intriguing doors or more old wrought iron, but really, it’s barely visible.

Here it is all bright. I did more distressing of the bricks before I wrangled it into place.

And here it is in place. I like that it recedes and blends into the background, as it should. The cistern is the center point of interest, holding as it does our random thoughts and stories. But just for a while. Unrealized, they seep back into the ground, and water the deep roots of our imaginations.

Hold on, little cistern!

Blue + Green

2015/08/224 Comments

Next volume in the miniature color book series: Blue + Green.

Like Pink + Green, it’s ten pages perfect bound, and measures five picas square (.833 in/21 mm).

This one shows found beach glass on a watercolor background, the view from Rattlesnake Ledge in West Greenwich, Rhode Island, afternoon surf off West Cliff in Santa Cruz, California, pool noodles on a wooden bench, and a self-portrait with found fishing lure, Pacifica, California.

Because color is endlessly interesting.

Pink + Green

2015/08/168 Comments

Designed a modern miniature book about color, the first in a series, called Pink + Green. It’s ten pages perfect bound, and measures five picas square (.833 in/21 mm). I made all the photographs; my daughter drew the cat when she was like three or four.

(Actually, she drew the front. I made the back view when I had it printed on fabric at Spoonflower to make stuffed loveys :)

These are the flat pages and covers, ready to be scored and trimmed.

Text blocks folded and glued, waiting to dry.

First cover on. After they’re really dry, I’ll clamp them in a press and square up the spines. And when they’re all crisp, I’ll brush a light coat of varnish on the cover. They’ll be lovely on the shelves with other books about local history and… rocks. Waves. Tides. Fossils? Bee-keeping? Native plants? Marine mammals, fish and invertebrates? Cookbooks? Plate tectonics?

My two-year-old granddaughter was here last weekend, and she is of course very interested in the Sea House Warming Hut. I had moved all the really delicate things out so she can explore and interact with it (supervised). She made sure to close all the windows “so the raccoons don’t come in”. She is a tremendous appreciator of my work :)

We did painting together. This one turned out to be the base for a trail map of the area I’m working on.

I’m drawing over it with fine tip markers and water color pencils. The little folded jaws-thing is a scaled mockup of the pop-up map it will become (sans cover). I learned this technique from Map Art Lab by Jill K. Berry and Linden McNeilly. It’s a great book; I especially appreciate their List of Resources for Arty Cartographers. Recommend!

I’ll finish the map art in Illustrator, adding names and legends and neat lines.

Realistically, I expect I’ll use a combination of hand-drawn things and copyright-free stuff I glean from the internet and other sources to fill the bookshelves. Because, you know, time.

Finally, and thank you for reading (or skimming) this far, check out my About page. I’ve actually sort of worked on it a teensil, and have added a PO Box to my contact information. Progress!

Sea House Warming Hut: Bar Stools Complete

2015/08/042015/08/0416 Comments

I’ll save you a lot of time: the thing I thought I didn’t want turned out to be the best thing for the space.

What I realized is that the Warming Hut is neither upscale nor over-elaborate; its appeal (aside from location) stems from simplicity and functionality. In the end, I liked the way that the bar stools integrated with the bar, and there was just no good reason to make them anything other than simply utilitarian. Which turned out to be matte aluminum.

Not that I didn’t try. Many things, colors, textures, trims. Thank you all for your suggestions!

For comfort I added a low cushion covered in soft black leather to the seats.

And then, apparently because I had not endured enough challenge and tedium gluing the feet on, I added black furniture glides, to protect the floors and make moving the chairs quieter. That’s 48 more (two per leg) wee punched dots wrangled into place, and touched up with a black Sharpie where the aluminum paint and/or glue extended over the edges.

I turn next to filling the shelves with maps, charts, books, art and maybe even some driftwood sculpture. And maybe I’ll even finish painting the final window, and get that installed.

nancyland.com

mixed media

Tag: modern miniatures