… Flowers, by Spanish artist and master of still life painting, Juan van der Hamen (1596-1631)
Because Mondays are always better with flowers.
Still Life with Flowers and a Dog, 1625, Juan van der Hamen. Image from Wikiart.
This year we have snowy winter. The snow came late, but it came in droves. And with plenty of snow also came bramblings, a flock of about 30 individuals. They returned multiple times, and I have managed to get some pictures, although the light was less than ideal.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
I do not think that I have seen Tom Nicholas’s videos recommended around here, so here is his latest piece which I found very entertaining and informative.
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… art nouveau advertising, by Alfonse Maria Mucha
I love Mucha’s style, but that toga looks a bit too formal for feeding the baby.
Nestle’s Food for Infants, 1897, Alfonse Maria Mucha. Image from Wikiart.
In my opinion, every household should have at least one person who knows how to sharpen a knife and occasionally does so. Not that good knives need to be sharpened very often, but even the best knife will get a bit dull at some point and it will need to be sharpened.
But most of my friends do not know how to sharpen knives, some are even afraid of it. There is in my opinion absolutely no need to be afraid of sharpening knives, and you do not need any fancy or expensive equipment either. And when searching for knife sharpening info online, one can encounter some pretty wild stuff, sometimes stuff that is not true.
Two-three years ago during one of my yearly get-together with friends from university, I was (as usual) dismayed by the state of knives in the communal kitchen at our lodging, so I have decided to sharpen at least one knife to a state when it will cut and not squish. However, on this particular trip, I have forgotten to take a whetstone, so I had to do without it.
I went on a walk in the forest and I have checked the geology on the wayside, where the bare rock was exposed. It was granite, which is of no use. However, where is granite, there often are metamorphic shales nearby, so I went further – and it was indeed just a few km further (about a half-hour walk). This particular metamorphic shale was phyllite, which is suitable for making a whetstone. So I took two stones to a nearby stream and I ground them against each other until I got perfectly flat surfaces.
And thus obtained whetstone worked perfectly well. The knife did not have the best edge it could get, but it was good enough for cutting safely and comfortably. I have even managed to teach one of my friends how to sharpen with it, and I did recommend to him to buy a professionally made one afterward.
And what did I recommend to him to buy? A cheap two-layer whetstone for 10,-€, 100 and 300 grit. The same one with which my father was sharpening knives his whole life and which I sometimes take with me on my travels.
If you are interested in learning how to sharpen a knife, I do recommend the above mentioned Burrfection YouTube channel. He does explain the principles well, without exaggerating. And he supports his claims with empirical evidence. For example, I have said to my friend that sharpening angle more or less does not matter if it is between 10-20° and constant throughout the blade. That claim was based on nothing more than my subjective experience, which could be mistaken. But Burrfection did say the same and he has the equipment to test the said claim. So he did.
Do not be afraid of knife sharpening. The basics are easy and more than enough for a typical store-bought mass-produced western knife.
… flowers, by Raku Inoue
This Montreal-based artist uses fresh flowers to create images. The pictures below are from his Natura Insects series, and you can read more about it at My Modern Met. You can also visit the artist’s web site, Reikan Creations, or his Instagram page, where you will find even more awesome whimsicality.
Kabutomushi (Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle), by Raku Inoue. Image from My Modern Met.
Black Widow, by Raku Inoue. Image from My Modern Met.
Butterfly, by Raku Inoue. Image from My Modern Met.
… trash, by Portuguese artist Artur Bordalo
I recently discovered an artist who is bringing attention to the problem of environmental waste and, in the process, making treasure out of trash.
Big Trash Animals’ by Artur Bordalo is a series of artworks that aim to draw attention to one of the world’s most pressing problems: Waste production. The overproduction of things like plastics and metals, a general lack of recycling and the ensuing pollution that it causes has a devastating effect on the planet, and we shouldn’t just learn to accept it as a necessary evil.
The full story, along with more photos, is at Bored Panda.
Trash Cat, by Artur Bordalo. Image from Bored Panda.
Trash Bird, by Artur Bordalo. Image from Bored Panda.
A girl can never have too many earrings…
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Mermaid tears. The little droplets are perfect for using up leftover resin. For one thing every resin set with moulds contains a packet of those small screw eyes. Because a 10 ct article suddenly turns three moulds into a 53 pieces craft set, so I have more than I’ll ever need. And then there’s always going to be some resin left over and I can turn it into droplets. One isn’t much, but put them together and you get this.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Geometrical lines are another thing I dig right now. OK, I dig everything right now.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
I poured some blanks with epoxy resin because after I’m done neither the bubbles nor the matte surface matter, and it’s a good way to save up on the expensive UV resin. Art is never a cheap substitute for therapy. It’s a damn expensive one. But hey, right now I have no other way to spend my fun money but buying craft supplies on Etsy and it does me so much good. Three hours a night where everything is nice and pretty and I don’t eat my body weight in chocolate.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
I like how these turned out, I don’t like how some dyes completely change their hue when hardened under the UV light. The blue was much more pronounced before hardening. That’s probably the next trip to the virtual art supplies store.
… Impressionism, by American artist Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1929)
Girl in Blue Kimono, 1911, Robert Lewis Reid. Image from Wikiart.
This one’s an older piece. I share Jazzlet’s love for cornflowers. Not only are they one of the rare blue flowers, they are also very undemanding flowers. Just throw a handful of seeds and you have flowers for years to come. I really need to dry more flowers in summer so I can have fun in winter…
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Again, huge problems in getting the camera to focus…
Jazzlet, if you want it, just send me your address.
And here’s some more UV resin fun. I’m still very much into making matching necklaces and earrings.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
©Giliell, all rights reserved
The shape is pretty irregular, but in this case I like it, as it matches the marble/pebble design.
And I made a necklace to match the cherry blossom earrings:
©Giliell, all rights reserved
As you can see, I changed the way I made the petals. They are more regular this way and much easier to work. I’m not sure which ones I like better, I just know that I would have lost patience making all the petals the other way.
… landscape, by French artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Huttes sous les arbres (Huts Under the Trees), 1887, Paul Gauguin. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
… flowers, by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian (1872-1944)
Amarylis, 1910, Piet Mondrian. Image from Wikiart.
Somebody somewhere in the comment section (I think on Marcus’s blog) expressed dislike for resin stabilized wood along the lines that it is the same as making the handles out of plastic. I disagree. Stabilized wood is a pain to work because it behaves like plastic in that regard, but it does not look like plastic and neither does it feel like plastic in the hand – it feels like wood. And as I was working on this project, I found out that it even sounds like wood – stabilized pieces give out very nice clonk-clonk when hit against each other. I think it might be possible to make musical instruments out of it, but I won’t try.
However, before said wood reaches its desired stabilized state, I have to work with epoxy resin. Lots of it.
I hate it.
It is gluey, it sticks to absolutely everything and it is transparent, so when it drops somewhere it is difficult to see in time. Tools and surfaces need to be cleaned with paper towels soaked in denatured alcohol, which is not cheap and the fumes do not smell exactly delicious. And the work needs to be done fast, because if the epoxy gels, it won’t soak into the wood no more.
With my macgyered vacuum pump I have reached a vacuum of 0,2-0,3 bar, which was sufficient for extremely porous wood, but might not be sufficient for this. Applewood has very small pores and is very hard, even the very decomposed pieces were still harder than for example poplar or basswood. So I have decided to bite the bullet and buy a small, cheap vacuum pump in the hope that it will work better. And it does – and it does not.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Even with my poorly sealed pickle jar, I have easily reached vacuum 0,6 bar within a minute. The wood released so many bubbles that the resin developed foam head like beer.
However, the pump also got very hot after a few minutes of running, which made me a bit worried. My macgyvered pump was a bit cumbersome and awkward, but overheating was completely a non-issue. I am not so sure about this one. I hope it does not burn out before I at least get to sell some knives.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Overheating aside, the wood soaked up the resin very nicely and although I have only used clear resin, it developed very nice and pleasant colors. The resin would cure over time at room temperature, but it is possible to speed up the curing by heating it to 60-80°C. So I did that the next day and I baked the pieces for two hours, after which I could appreciate the nice clonk-clonk that I was talking about at the beginning.
I have also approached the issue a bit more scientifically this time and I have weighed all the pieces before and after. Here you can see the results.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size
This made me very happy with the results. The relatively healthy wood has gained approx 30% in weight, the not-very-much rotten root wood doubled its weight and the more decomposed wood has almost tripled its weight. All pieces of similar size weighed approximately the same after the stabilizing process, irrespective of what wood they were made of. And finally, all pieces when put in water either sunk completely or just barely floated with 99% submerged. So even the relatively healthy wood should be soaked up with resin to sufficient depth.
Now that the wood is stabilized, the only thing that is left is to psych myself up to go into the freezing workshop and finish the knives. Which includes first a bit of grinding and drilling, and then a lot of gluing. Even more fun with epoxy awaits, hooray!