Update from indefatigable gardener / commentor Opiejeanne:
This is the garden shed project so far.
[Here’s the original post, from back in May.]
You can see we haven’t quite figured out how to put the ceiling up. Some of the items like the paint tubes and brushes will have to be brought in for the winter because freezing is not recommended.
The purple chair was a garage sale find; $5.
The blue dresser/desk/secretary was $35 at an architectural salvage place in Seattle. They don’t usually have much furniture. I painted it after finding out that it used to have a nice mahogany veneer that must have gotten wet and the “repair” job was not good. They filled the areas with spackle and didn’t bother to sand it down before painting it black with a drab green interior.
The floor needs to be swept and the rug shaken out; the little rug was damaged by our cats so the shed got it.
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
That shed is so cute ?
OzarkHillbilly
Nice.
Sab
Is that a “she shed” like in the tv ads?
OzarkHillbilly
On your ceiling issue, I suggest getting some 2x4s and run them front to back resting them on the top wall plate, on 2′ centers, than hang whatever material you decide to finish the ceiling with. Ideally this is done before the walls are hung but too late for that. It just means that now your ceiling corners will have a rush finish that can be hidden with a bead of caulk.
Don’t even try to hang anything on the existing rafters. The are no doubt put in rather haphazardly, something that is easily hidden on the outside with boards, felt paper and shingles, but will show up rather glaringly on any kind of smooth surface.
Mary G
Love the shed! Especially Marvin the Martian. I have a secretary/desk almost exactly like that, except mine is yellow and doesn’t have the trim at the bottom. It looks like a great place to make art. What is the purple-flowered bush outside?
Anne Laurie
@Mary G:
Pretty sure that’s a (flourishing!) clematis vine, and yes I am very very jealous. I love clematis, but none of the multiple species I’ve tried has ever survived past its first winter, if that long.
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G: It’s a clematis, probably the Jackmani.
eclare
Nice shed!
NotMax
Kind of a wild, off the top of the head ceiling idea to carry over the open, airy, garden-y motif, but you could tell right off if it is feasible.
Angle irons at the top of the pegboard (or as close to the top as the existing space permits), attached to the vertical studs.
2 × 3s front to back, held firm by attachment to angle irons. (Not talking a great amount of weight to bear, but 2 × 2s would probably tend to sag, 2 × 4s could mean losing an additional inch of pegboard space.)
Panels of garden trellis, either stained, white or painted to match the wainscoting, attached to the 2 × 3s.
As I said, just spitballling.
NotMax
@NotMax
Ack.
That “you could tell,” of course, meant to be directed to @OzarkHillbilly.
raven
Great ! It’s still is goddamn hot here! It was tolerable at the game but the walk back up the hills sucked. I’ve had mild vertigo the last couple of days and, but eh time aI got to my truck, I was seeing double and had to drive home like I used to when I was a drinker with one eye shut.
NotMax
@raven
Take it easy.
Been brutal, even record breaking heat here for the past week. Sitting here at 1 in the morning with two fans blowing in my direction.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: How are you feeling?
Dorothy A. Winsor
On Friday, the sale of our house finally closed. Thank goodness. One less thing to worry about.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Yay! Take it the radon remediation wasn’t an involved process, then.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: That’s an interesting idea. Thanks.
We’re going to put some insulation on the underside of the roof before we close it up with a ceiling. We used panels of styrofoam on the walls and it was easy to work with. My nephew suggested using sprayed on insulation but that would have been a Lucy & Ethel skit, hilarious to onlookers but not a good idea.
I’d like the ceiling to mimic the underside of the roof, and not be just a flat ceiling. It would be pretty low and would make it feel like being crammed into a box.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: The radon was coming from the sump pump hole in the basement. So they ran a pipe up through the garage and then through the garage roof. That apparently took care of it. $1200. Bye, money! It was nice to have you.
opiejeanne
@Sab: There’s room for two, barely. I think it’s going to be mine, though. He really needs a workshop and that’s the next project.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Other than my sleep being all out of whack (awake since midnight, about to take a nap) not bad. The shoulder is stiff and swollen but not too painful. I’ve already ditched the sling and I haven’t even bothered with painkillers, I’ll probably just add them to my emergency stash.
JPL
@opiejeanne: I love the shed and how it is coming along.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: How long were you suppose to wear the sling?
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: The existing 2X4s are definitely put in haphazardly and one is so twisted in just a few short feet that it doesn’t pretend to align with the others, curing and twisting to the side where it comes out under the eaves. The building was used as a chicken coop and the construction is really bad. Nothing is a standard distance apart except the floor joists that we installed.
I think we’ve figured out how to make the ceiling work, but we’re going to experiment to see if my idea will work.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: glad to hear you are better you ol warhorse!
opiejeanne
@Anne Laurie: It is a clematis. We didn’t grow them in SoCal, although I did try one in Anaheim, but did something wrong. It never really flourished in the two years I had it, and then we sold the house so it’s toast now. No one watered, the buyer’s dog ate the entire garden. Idiots.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: What did you do to your shoulder?
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Well, you’re typing with caps, so there’s already evidentiary improvement.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
@Dorothy A. Winsor: yay! Congrats!
@OzarkHillbilly: I haven’t been around much, so missed what happened. Glad you feel like you’re coming along ok. During the worst of my shoulder problems I had to sleep in a chair because it kept me from rolling into my injured shoulder In my sleep causing a sudden painful awakening.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: I meant to explain that we never saw clematis at all in SoCal. The one I planted was ordered from a catalog.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: Cool.
@JPL: I don’t know. Right now I’m not doing anything to put it under any stress and if it starts hurting more, I’ll put the sling back on. Meanwhile, it’s a frustrating pain in the ass that I’ll just do without.
NotMax
Attention Amazon Prime!
Boy, did you ever pick the wrong audience to foist 30 second promos for Thursday night football upon.
Doubt I’ve seen 30 seconds of a football game in my life.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: You should have seen us swearing at the wall studs on 26″ centers, 15″ centers, 35″ centers. We inserted extra studs in order to put up the pegboard.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: I had surgery Friday. Went in for a rotator cuff repair and came out with a bone spur removed.
@Raven: My wife would argue that point with you.
satby
@raven: @NotMax: both of you take it easy on the heat you’re having! It’s going to warm up here a bit after a refreshing spell of cooler weather, but we’re past the brutal heat mark for the year.
I went back to the older thread to remind myself of the beginning of the project, and what struck me (besides the shed progress) was how much more horrible it’s gotten in this country since then. Only 4 months, but it feels so much worse. I’ve been nearly catatonic this last week.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: Yeah, I finally got my arm back yesterday afternoon tho parts of it remained on hiatus until last night.
@satby: Both my shoulders have itises and seeing as I sleep on my sides I spend my nights rolling back and forth. Usually wake up 3 or 4 times a night. Ces’t la vie. Right now I’m sleeping on the couch so I don’t unconsciously roll over onto the left one.
OzarkHillbilly
@opiejeanne: Yeah, I’ve done my fair share of cursing at people who never should have gone near a hammer.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
A few years back, ripped out and replaced a termite ridden interior dividing wall in landlady’s garage. Not only were the vertical studs placed on random centers, not a one was vertical. One was 35% canted. Bonus, the 4×8 ceiling joist was not set in a straight run.
Ended up going with aluminum studs, anchored to the concrete floor, and vinyl paneling. Termites, eat yer hearts out.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same here, though probably not at all to the same extent as you. That’s why I started sleeping in the chair (regular chair with ottoman) because there was an overlap of time when both shoulders had ruptured tendons at once. I had to stay off both of them, and I’m a side sleeper too.
opiejeanne
@rikyrah: Thanks. I didn’t think it would be cute when we started. It was such an ugly mess I suggested tearing it down and starting over: it leaned to the west, had no floor or foundation, was not not tall enough, and the door that was on it had been cut down one side and shortened at the bottom and that was hung on hinges you’d use on a big box. Three sides were shingled, the front had horizontal boards that were pretty ugly. Now it has windows on every wall. The one on the west is the only one that doesn’t open. The windows were salvage or free at the curb, except the two small ones on the front. Dave built those.
I have not figured out how much we spent on this project, and I’m afraid to know. We had a lot of the bits already, all but one window, the cedar shingles found in a box inside the shed, most of the lower paneling, all of the hooks for the pegboard (no idea where they came from), all of the floor joists were salvaged from a fence that was knocked down by a car. Second Use in Seattle is an architectural salvage place and we spent a lot of time there this summer, as well as a little time at Re-Use (run by Habitat for Humanity).
NotMax
@NotMax
35°, not 35%.
satby
@opiejeanne: Salvage 1 in Chicago used to be the best place for salvaged architectural items, now it’s a prized venue for weddings !?! I used to be able to find the antique door knobs and stuff to match what was in my Chicago home there.
And ReStore by Habitat is my favorite place to look for things. The “new” cabinets I had installed over my kitchen counter /sink remodel came from there. Four cabinets, solid wood, $45 each. Just had to repaint them.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
Yeah, the ReStore can be a boon, but is wholly random as to what is there on any given day.
Where my bent cane full size sofa came from.
Immanentize
Happy Sunday All.
Oppiejeane — love the shed. Reminds me of Michael Pollan’s book “A Place of My Own’.”. Which is a great book about his writing shed.
Ozark — don’t be too irracible to heal, let your wife help, let the woofmeister lie around and get better soon
Raven — that sounded bad. I hope you can take it easy today out of the heat.
NotMax
@satby
Walked into the ReStore one day and there were over 100 brand new, still in the box 5-cup Hamilton Beach coffee makers, at five bucks a pop.
Would that had a need for one.
Ohio Mom
@raven: Google Epley Procedure and try one of the DIY versions. I had partial luck doing that when I had vertigo — though I eventually ended up at the PCP, who gave my head a much firmer twist than I could manage on my own.
She explained that inside the inner ear, as part of the system that helps you keep your balance, there is a tiny tube with crystals in liquid. As you move, the crystals move. But sometimes a crystal gets stuck and the result is vertigo and dizziness.
A properly done Epley loosens the crystal and it goes back to floating freely.
I can’t think of another time a doctor cured me with just her/his bare hands.
debit
Call me crazy but I think the vaulted, bare wood ceiling is actually kind of charming.
Immanentize
@NotMax:
I see an air BnB in someone’s future. Complete with coffee pot in the room!
NotMax
@Immanentize
“To our valued guests: If you must, please take the coffee maker and leave the towels.”
:)
Dorothy A. Winsor
So is the shack for writing? I’d want a bathroom in it if so, but that’s because I can’t imagine living someplace where I didn’t have to wade through feet of snow to get back to the house.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah??
rikyrah
Beto had 55,000 at his rally/concert with Willie Nelson
https://twitter.com/CalNBC/status/1046291062308962305
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
A chamber pot was good enough for the like of Mary Shelley, the Brontë sisters and George Sand.
:)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NotMax: I assume they had people to empty them. :)
debbie
@raven:
Get that looked at.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: The first symptom of my heart attack was dizziness so I felt like I was going to faint. Just saying.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Details, details.
:)
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve been dealing with whatever the real name is for a frozen shoulder for about three months. I need a fifth side to sleep on!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie: Adhesive capsulitis. I had that. Then a few years late, I had it in the other shoulder. Hurts like hell.
WereBear
I want a she-shed too!
NotMax
@debbie
Instant flashback to this.
:)
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Glad to hear you are feeling more like your whole self.
debbie
@NotMax:
If only!
Raven
@Ohio Mom: yea, I’m doing with marginal success .
Raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: my blood pressure is good but if this doesn’t resolved today I’m goin in.
Elizabelle
I love the art-shed.
I have one of those secretary desks. Still has a good mahogany finish, but thinking it might be fun to paint the interior.
I love yours in Jetsons Blue.
satby
@NotMax: I would have bought one just to keep for a backup. Or an unexpected gift.
kattails
@opiejeanne: Strapping nailed horizontally to the undersides of the rafters, meeting at the corners, 16″ on center. This will even out the attachment surface and the strapping itself is 2 1/2″ wide so it’s much easier to put up the ceiling. Then insulate behind the strapping; you need an air gap between that and the ceiling, use that styrofoam u-shaped material where it will fit. Then hang whatever you want to the strapping–beadboard, sheetrock etc. Then cover the corner joins with trim if need be.
Cute spot! What do you paint?
lamh36
satby
@debbie: @Dorothy A. Winsor: yep, both shoulders for me too, one right after the other because of the ruptured tendons (which occurred about 5 months apart…The second because I had shifted weight bearing activities like carrying the 50 lb dog food bags to the uninjured side. Even with therapy, they took the full 18 month average to resolve, so I basically went for almost 2 1/2 years with one or the other messed up. Hot pads and stretching and with time I got about 90% ROM back in both. But it sure sucked before that ?
debbie
@satby:
You’re right about a back-up. I almost lost my mind when my coffee maker refused to work first thing in the morning (on a work day no less!). I’ve got a couple back-ups now (the second one wasn’t intentional) so that’ll never happen again!
lamh36
A thread:
zhena gogolia
I thought Matt Damon did an excellent job playing Kavanaugh, and Aidy Bryant was hilarious as Mitchell. I’m immune to Kate McKinnon, though. Not very funny, when Graham gave such good raw material.
Spanky
@Raven: Yeah, that procedure is only for BPPV. When the doc did that to me it caused much retching. Turns out there’s something going on with my Eustachian Tube. I found out by accident that I could reduce/eliminate the vertigo by aggressively popping my ears for a few minutes.
But yeah, get that looked at. Hope you have better luck with ENTs than I have.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@lamh36: I love this guy. The replies to that tweet are discouraging though. More horrible people who are in power now and want to stay that way.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Good to hear that. What a relief.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m a McKinnon fan, but that was 1) too much like her Jeff Sessions 2) too broadly comic, I want to say slapstick but that’s not quite right, she was conveying weirdness more than Graham’s performative pseudo-rage
rikyrah
@lamh36:
And? So?
The second part of the tweet is why I could care less? about the Crypt keeper’s pain.
Luthe
I was going to complain about how itchy the healing tattoo on *my* shoulder is, but it seems y’all have the shoulder problem olympics all locked up.
opiejeanne
@Mary G: Could you tell what the Marvin the Martian picture was about? Next to Marvin is his imaginary skeleton. I took an anatomical drawing class and we’d worked on bones and the skeleton for a lot of sessions. The reward was we got to pick a cartoon character and design a skeleton based on what we knew of the human skeleton. It’s hard to see in this photo but it’s beside him, he’s pointing his gun at it.
laura
@lamh36: how was the wedding? Cake and dancing babies and lots of loving?
opiejeanne
@raven: That’s not good.
We were in Temecula for a couple of days, and then briefly in San Bernardino before heading up into the mountains. It was 100 at the base of the mountain, 80 when we were a mile up, at the cabin.
We’ve been talking about selling it, and the two big fires that encroached on fairly large cities the past two years was our wake-up call. I’m too old to sift through the ashes of a place I love, I’m too old to do that even if I didn’t love this place, and if they couldn’t save Santa Rosa* or Redding, they certainly won’t be able to save this place.
*Some a lot of bitterness in the area that there was more attention given to saving the vineyards than the poorer side of Santa Rosa.
opiejeanne
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh my! I hope you feel better soon.
They considered surgery for me a couple of years ago when they thought maybe I had the same issue, but decided to try to fix it with therapy first. I was dubious, but I’m fine now. It was so bad before that I couldn’t raise my arm above shoulder height. Now if it starts aching a little I remember to straighten my back and shoulders, because bad posture makes the pain come back for me. Which makes me think it might have been something else entirely.
kindness
I promise never to post pics of the shed in my backyard. It was old & decrepit when we moved in 9 years ago. I stabalized it some but it is an eyesore and filled with stuff. Nothing about it inside or out is scenic but it does put walls around a lot of stuff so it stays. I kinda have a little Okie in me. No broken cars in the yard/driveway though.
WaterGirl
@Sab: Worst ad campaign ever. Ugh. I cringe when I hear it.
opiejeanne
@satby: Rebuilding that shed was our distraction from the daily horror. It blunted a lot of the emotional upheaval for both of us, but me especially.
I don’t really know how much we spent because a lot of the materials were salvage. One window and the door came from an architectural salvage place, as did the desk ($35) one window was left on the street in Seattle with a “free” sign on it. The third one a neighbor sold us at a garage sale but has no memory of it.
Dave built the two small windows in the front out of leftover scraps of wood from work we had done on the house. The floor joists were salvage from the fence that had been knocked down just before we closed escrow, and the guys who repaired it used new wood even though those 2X6es were fine. We had some of the lower paneling left from when we first moved in and tried to make the kitchen look better. We had all of the pegboard hooks but neither of us can remember where they came from. There was a box of cedar shingles in the shed before we started, and David was careful to save as many shingles as possible when he cut into the walls for the windows. The chair was $5 at a garage sale down the street and it’s a lot nicer than I was going to buy. I’ve been working in that shed on the novel which may never be finished. It’s pretty quiet there, except for the squirrels and birds who come around and harass me on nice days when I have the windows open. The towhees are not particularly impressed by me but they are curious about the shed now. The squirrels just swear at me from the fence when they spot me through the one window that doesn’t open.
Steeplejack (tablet)
Day #18 here in the desert, the start of my last week in Las Vegas. I got a call from my mother a while ago saying she didn’t want to go out for brunch and gaming (nickel slots!) at her local establishment, so I’ll probably drive up to Summerlin later with lunch and watch golf or football on TV with her.
That actually suits me better, because I enjoy talking with her and picking her brain about recipes, family history, etc. But I think that she thinks that we have to do something “entertaining.” Hostess syndrome. I’ve tried to tell her otherwise, but no luck.
Autumn is a couple of weeks late, but it’s finally coming. The high today will be about 94°, but tomorrow it’s 89°, and the rest of the week it’s in the low 80s (with lows in the low 60s). There’s even a 60-70% chance of rain the next few days—the belated September “monsoon.”
We’re going out into nature again tomorrow. Last week we took a day trip to Mount Charleston in the Spring Mountains. Forty-five minutes from Las Vegas, 6,000 feet higher and 20-plus degrees cooler. We ate lunch at one of the picnic areas, enjoyed the sun and 73° temp and took in the scenery. Very mountainous, lots of bristlecone pines, other pines and various scruffy evergreens, sage and something else with small yellow flowers on the ground. “Subalpine,” I would call it, but I’m not a geographer. We saw some woodpeckers and some hawks way up in the drafts. A ranger who came by showed us a small party of wild horses that were resting up with a colt in a hollow near us. I took some pictures, and I’ll see about sending some in.
My mom really enjoyed the outing. She has always been a nature girl but doesn’t get out into the wild very often. She had a fall that slowed her down for a while, and then the summer was very hot. So I’m looking at other interesting places, or we may just go back to another part of the Mount Charleston area.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: Wow. That’s even worse than the shed was before we hid all the sins behind paneling and pegboard.
That reminds me of a series of photos on a blog that showed the progress on a shed his landlord was building, several years ago. It was beyond belief and made me think the builder was either mentally ill or drunk, or had a severe learning disability affecting his ability to know he needed to measure things before cutting them: https://imgur.com/a/yPZEA
Gelfling 545
Oh, wow! Having shed envy here!
opiejeanne
@Immanentize: Thanks. Right now it is my writing shed. I do a little sketching at the desk, but there is a nice sheet of particle board with a hard glossy finish that will be the top of an artist desk. Just needs the legs and frame built. I found the ratchet/lift mechanism online so it will tilt up for some projects. He has started making me a brush storage thing by gluing pieces of PVC to a board, to replace the hot pink plastic makeup organizers from Target’s $1 section.
opiejeanne
@debit: I kind of think so too, except for the spider eggs in one corner that still need to be swept down. We didn’t notice them until we’d buttoned up the shed. They’re in a corner right above the blue desk.
opiejeanne
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes! I’m writing the Great American Civil War Novel for Girls in there. I won’t be able to write out there too much longer, and not at all when it snows. The little space heater won’t be able to keep up. We still have to install electricity but right now I run an extension cord from an outdoor outlet on the house. We do get snow, but usually about a foot or less.
opiejeanne
@kattails: Most recently I painted that desk. LOL. (No one ever asks me that) Mostly I just putter.
I’m experimenting with watercolor and will probably try landscapes. I’ve done pieces for class, portraits of models that were recognizable as the person doing the modeling. One teacher was very annoyed that I was too pleased by having “made it look like her”. Totally an accident, a slight slip of the brush and there she was.
I have plans for a portrait of my kids, in the style of Sargent’s portrait of the Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. I’ve started sketching it and experimenting with the colors, but of course I’m not in Sargent’s league or within a hundred leagues so the sketch and plans have languished, but I have an idea in my head.
One of my daughters is an artist but works for a shipping company. She could do illustration for children’s books but she doesn’t have the inclination. I’ve considered taking some of her funnier pictures and printing them on children’s tops. They’d probably sell, they’re that good. Me, I just putter. I did paint that Marvin the Martian, though.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
You could go all Lisa Douglas and hang an incongruous gaudy fixture.
:)
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I can’t bring myself to say “she shed” although I did laugh the first time I saw that ad. The term just bugs me. No, I do not have plans to hang a crystal chandelier from the ceiling, nor will there be sheer draperies draping their drapiness everywhere.
There will be chickens depicted in various places, in honor of the original use of the building. There used to be a little trap door next to the front door for the chickens to go in and out. Dave was ruthless and told me it had to go.
Maybe I should paint portraits of chickens!
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
Same here nearly 20 yrs ago. Because I hadn’t been able to really move the shoulder fully the figured the rotator cuff was still messed up from when I tore it in an accident. Rotator was fine but bone spurs were restricting movement.
Here’s the bad part if you’ve never been through this. Hurts like hell because of all the poking around and bone spur removal. The first couple weeks are the worst – then you start PT. The next month or so is fun, getting back the range of movement. But it gets better and while my range wasn’t 100% it was close. Of course now when I move my shoulder just right it clicks. I think those bone spurs are growing back or the shoulder is just shot. So that now adds up to one knee, one hip and one shoulder that need replacing. Not quite the 6 million dollar man, more like a $1.95.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Also, that thing with her hand was what she did with Rudi. I don’t get the reference.
opiejeanne
@NotMax: That really made me laugh. We didn’t watch that show: My dad didn’t like Eddie Albert for some reason probably related to stories Grandpa told about Hollywood that I wish I’d heard.
I love the toaster on the table when they’re entertaining the guest. The walls aren’t finished at all. I’ve never seen an old farmhouse like that unless it was being gutted, but someone must have see one somewhere.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That’s really intriguing. I love old Hollywood stories. I’ve always meant to hunt down an old copy of “Hollywood Babylon”, but just the other day I read on the ‘nets that most of it isn’t even gossip, it’s just made up.
@debbie: I’d forgotten she did Rudi, too. They have definitely gone to that well too often. And again, I say that as a fan.
opiejeanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Grandpa worked in the studios as a still photographer from about 1909 until he retired in 1932. He came out of retirement during WWII to work as a developer. I think he still took photos, there are some from that period in his collection that look like his work.
Anyway, he was very disturbed by the faintest whiff of scandal and he worked in Hollywood, which was pretty scandalous even back then. I wish I had heard some of his stories but I was only 13 when he died and he wouldn’t talk about that stuff anyway. I should have gotten the stories from my dad, if I’d thought of it.
kattails
@opiejeanne: And your Marvin is a perfect likeness! ;-) Dammit, you should be proud. I can’t understand this idea that lousy drawing somehow makes it good art. That Sargent painting is a high bar but it pays to look at the best. And generally, ideas in your head are a pretty good place to start. Just remember, one solidly professional artist whose work I admire (Pamela Kay, British) said “Painting is not a spectator sport.”.
If you’re going to play with watercolors do yourself the favor of getting a decent brush and good paper. Since you mentioned Sargent, he could probably get a masterpiece out of a napkin, but the rest of us don’t need to fight our materials. You’re better off with one really good #6 or 7 sable than a slew of crappy brushes. Have fun!