Let's Hear It For The Red, White & Blue

How different they can be even if the main colors are the same!!!

After an orgy of Halloween items, 22 in fact, I needed a pause, a change. I wasn't really ready for the Green and Red of Christmas just yet so on a foray to Michael's to buy some small square blocks to use for feet on my birdhouses, I was greeted with THE FOURTH OF JULY! Everywhere the store was decorated and I realized that the two items I had done to pay homage to this holiday were, in fact, sold.

     Coming home I looked at the collection of small, unfinished, mini-birdhouses I had and picked three that I liked. I considered it a challenge to use the basic three colors, come up with different designs using the colors - designs that would go well with each one.

     And, here they are. Very, very different but in keeping with at least the colors of the holiday. Not sure if Betsy Ross liked the colors, the British surely did with their red, white and blue Union Jack. They are striking colors that stand out at any time of the year!

     I added feet to the round one and used golden stars for contrast that honor the stars and stripes. Several red lines wind around the piece in wavy lines. Golden stars added to the roof add emphasis to three stars on the front and back and one each on the sides.

     The star theme was easy to adapt to the middle birdhouse. It already had a metal star and metal roof on it's bare wood frame. Again, I added feet so it can stand or be hung. The silver wire hanger looks good hung or standing on a table top. The challenge was how to decorate the body already scored with horizontal lines. I alternated red and white on top and put a red and blue checkerboard motif below. A little silver glitter and silver feet complete the balance of colors.

     The last birdhouse retained the red, white and blue but hearts, one of my favorite "signatures" replace stars for the third birdhouse. The same colors were used but with a different emphasis of red and white curved lines with a blue roof and base. The jewel in the curve of each bottom red line on all four sides adds a bit of sparkle to the piece.

     As I have said many times before, we may all start with the same surface but oh how differently we make them turn out. I wanted to show here just how different they may begin but in using the same basic colors how they become siblings when shown together.

     This is a wonderful challenge. I urge you to do the same! Find two or three blanks ... be it canvas, a birdhouse or even a wooden box and in using the same colors come up with three different designs. You might be surprised at just how good they will turn out.

     These items and many more are available on my ETSY.com store. Check out:

KrugsStudio.etsy.com

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

The ""Art" of Gardening

   

I was stunned to find out that Plumeria's

love the desert. I joined the Plumeria

Society here and find it makes me a

better gardener in general!

      

I have had a garden since I was in grade school. My German father disliked yard work of any kind and my South Dakota born mother thought it was beneath her. This from a woman who made us read Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette - and tested us no less!

     I managed to eek out a few vegetables and flowers along the fringes of our house. I never forgave my father the year he painted the house and got paint drops all over my garden. Many of the vegetables became inedible. 

     We rented our house in Portland and the landlord provided us with a lawnmower to mow the yard. We were on a corner lot with our house on 67th, a large open space and a duplex on Glisan with a backyard as well. The beast was self propelled and dragged me every week around the yard much to my dad's delight. It meant that he didn't have to do it. Since it rains all the time the grass was green pretty much the whole year. Only a silver thaw or snow relieved me of my duties.

     I had a pretty good "green thumb" and no matter where I lived, there was a garden. When we re-did the entire back yard in our San Gabriel Valley home, I had them build me five 4' x 8' raised garden beds to replace the ground garden I already had. I got more than enough zucchini, other squashes, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn and much more.

     They put in an irrigation system but it had to be turned on and off which was a drag if you were gone a few weeks in the summer.

This is typical of all first floor units in my complex.

     When I moved to Palm Springs in January of 2016 I had already become an orchid killer. No matter what I did, both in Alhambra and now Palm Springs, I would get lovely blooms from the plants I bought, they would finally fade away and then die. No matter what I did, I could never get one to survive the initial blooms. In disgust I finally both a plastic one at IKEA. Now and then it gets a bath in the shower.

      When the opportunity came to purchase a condo in the complex where I was renting, I decided to approach the seller and see his unit, behind mine. I was not prepared for the yard it offered. I have yet to see a condo with a yard like this. Even though we had the same inside layout, I had a long narrow concrete patio and he had a yard! Not including his patio, the yard measured about 25 ft. deep and 45 ft. wide. I did have a long narrow patio with a balcony above my bedroom door. There were many succulent and cactus type plants but it was apparent no one had a garden. It had a palm tree, a massive rather rare cactus and  an old, mature lemon tree. I had seen my neighbors back yard years ago but was surprised at how much more space I had. I later learned it was built for the original builders son who lived here for many years before selling it to the board member I purchased it from.

This was the original back yard as it was when I purchased my condo.

     I had two months on my lease left when I purchased my condo so we had to two months to gut and rebuild the kitchen, add fans in each room and for me to get everything painted. Then there was the moving. After that frenzy I had no stomach for what I knew would be another major project - creating a new garden complete with irrigation.

     I was, however, getting ready. UC Riverside has a campus in Palm Desert and offers some great gardening classes open to all. I attended several paying particular attention to growing in the desert. Your summer is our winter. Many plants cannot take the relentless heat. So we plant in October for a harvest in the spring. Weird, no? As I write this it was 111º yesterday, it will be 109º today!

     Since I had brought a plumeria branch with me, I heard about and started attending the local Plumeria Society meetings nearby. As you can see above, they thrive here in the desert. One member has one 20 ft. high. They appear to be just about everywhere. I now have five! They love the heat, hate wet feet and once established can put up with the heat. They love sandy soil and hope you ignore them rather than drown them. I learned much about planting, anything, from them.

     This year I decided the time had come for a garden complete with irrigation. Talking to our maintenance man here at the condo he made suggestions on what could be done and admitted that my unit had flooded. We came close last year when we got an inch of rain in an hour and water lapped at the dining and bedroom doors. The fake wood is cupped from flooding in the past.

     His first step was to put in a French drain so that will never happen again. However, it was done when I was on a trip so I returned to see a huge pile of sand in the yard. I guess the hole was big enough for coffins and then had to be filled with rocks and gravel. The sand came from the hole.

     I returned home to what looked like nothing had happened. However, he replaced the pavers and, I discovered, had also installed the irrigation system that was on a timer! I could just imagine myself watering three times a day out here when it gets up to 122º like it did four times last year. Now I could get 4 emitters to a line coming up through the soil or along the patio walls! I could put them in the pots that needed water and near plants in the garden knowing that now they would get three short waterings a day. I can adjust it of course but for now we will see how it works.

    One of the things I learned was that you could use concrete blocks for a raised bed garden. I liked the idea because it wouldn't rot, there were no bad chemicals to get into plants and it would be easy to move or change. A trip to Home Depot for costs also showed that you could get not only dead grey but pleasant tan blocks, not that different from the stucco at the condo.

   The only bad thing was that the only dirt we had was, well, sand, the same sand that came out of the new French drain. So reluctantly I had him put the sand in around the irrigation risers and then before I planted added amendments to the soil though I am sure it will not be enough.

     It would have to do for now as I knew that I was taking a chance planting a garden this late in the year. As you can see (right), the irrigation is in place, the sand filled in the raised portion of the wall and after adding amendments and putting the irrigation nozzles  in place felt I was ready to plant. This was in May.

   I bought corn, cucumbers, tomatoes, large and cherry, several squash and watermelon along with chili and sweet peppers at the nursery. From seed I tried green beans, pole and bush, corn, and several flowers but other than the corn and beans the others have struggled. Then something, who knows what began eating the pole beans. I have had some luck with soap, oil and water sprays but whatever they are, they are relentless. 

     As you can, the back yard seems well organized and things are growing. The corn is to the top of the wall. The corns seeds are not all that far behind.

   

     The last thing I wanted to do was to compost all my scraps. I have been amazed at how much green debris there is from cooking. I had another area to the right of my gate of dirt that I could also brick in and look for an easy way to compost. I found two plastic bins that are adjustable on Amazon and have started putting table and kitchen scraps in it. Looking online to see what you could compost I was startled to find newspapers, used paper towels, kleenix and other items were also suitable besides green items. They all needed to heat up and break down of course, but already the volume of what I throw out has decreased substantially. I am trying to get our maintenance man to put grass clippings in now and then. It sure makes it easier to get rid of leaves, weeds and other things you otherwise would have to drag over to the dumpster, that's for sure.

     What happens next? I really don't know. I am keeping a kind of mental record of this first try. Some things seem to be fine, others, mostly due to insects feasting, are struggling. I wanted to plant flowers to ward off some of these problems but can't find what I want and they are struggling growing from seed despite being planted first in seed pots.

     However, now that I have started this adventure I realize that gardening, just like painting or drawing or doing any of the other arts is an art that is every bit as intensive of our attention. As the weather heats up I will hide more and more in the A/C of the condo and nurse my new garden in the early morning and evening, avoiding the heat of the day!

     I will add updates as something more happens.

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

It Only Cost Three Bucks, Why Charge $20 or More Dollars?

As I colored this, from raw, unfinished wood, I
thought WHAT should I charge for it?

The heat has descended on the desert. Keeping an eye on the calendar and my ETSY.com store, KrugsStudio.etsy.com, I am also well aware that with the four month timeline you get for 20¢ an item, that all of my Halloween stuff better be on sale soon. I have completed 10 new items already, am working on four and have about 20 stored from last season.

     You see, our summers are like your winters. The advice I was given when I moved here on a chilly but pleasant January day was, "when the heat hits, and it will, you close up your house, strip naked and watch all the shows you recorded on your DVR last winter." I didn't go that far but you get the idea. Even my dog waits to go pee when its 122º outside.

     In fact, as I was finishing the last four items today (trust me, I am SICK of orange and black) I reflected on one of the items I was painting. 

On SALE wood craft products start out
looking like this!

   The item probably cost me two or three dollars, on sale last year after Halloween of course, so as I painted I began running costs through my mind ... painting for pay if you will! There was the item of course, there were the things I was adding, "jewels," paint and the one factor you can never recover, time. So I thought as I watched it flash through it's LED repertoire, probably $20 - 25.00

     I can already hear the comments: "twenty dollars for something that you paid at most $3 for?

     Yes, I will. The reason? If you were to visit my studio you would see that it is much, MUCH more than bottles of acrylic paint, brushes and filled with things to paint, a place to paint. A LOT MORE!!!

    First the paint. Iwould guess, I don't want to count or I might faint if I did, I have between 200 - 300 bottles of acrylic paint. Most are the one ounce kind but there are a goodly number of larger bottles of popular colors I use as well. Folks, paint ain't cheap either. I have too many brushes, of course, but when you need that "certain" brush, its good to have. Then there are the add on's. Smaller pieces of beads, feet, cutouts, "jewels," varnish, extenders ... the list goes on and on. The inventory I have to draw on has probably cost me $1,000's but it is necessary when you want to make what you purchase different than what anyone else might buy and use.

Paint, paint and more paint!

     I call it, value adding. Sure you can all go to Michael's, Hobby Lobby or my new favorite here in the desert, Jo-Ann's, and buy exactly the same things I buy. I've noticed that out here in the desert even Target and Walmart are getting into the act. In fact, Walmart sells FolkArt paints in many colors for 50¢ a bottle. That my friends is a deal! FolkArt uses dense, opaque pigments that are a dream to use. We can both have the same item, an unfinished birdhouse, a box, a tray. But, and that's a big BUT, what we do with it will be very, very different.

   Here is the creative space. Here I can paint and 

   watch Netflix or Amazon Prime though I prefer 

   audio books checked out from the library. 

   Creating and keeping up on the latest fiction 

   and non-fiction.

     

   If you haven't, you should check out the ETSY.com store. I guess more than a million sellers are there. If you enjoy craft painting as a hobby, you should look and see what others have done. It is the vision of each crafter that makes the difference. Some are very  inexpensive, others are costlier and often with good reason, a lot of work went into their creation. Then, there is the rest of us in the middle that have a fun vision of how we decorate. My forte tends to be color. I use red a lot and it seems to draw far more sales than softer, more muted colors. 

   People I know who do similar crafting complain, like me, that they can't get their time and effort for their work. Truth be told, it is often easier to paint a plain white canvas than a six sided birdhouse. Why? Because a canvas is two-dimensional. You might slop paint on the sides if they are to be exposed frameless but consider; a birdhouse has four sides, a roof that might have a few more sides and a bottom. It will be viewed from all sides! Museums might not like you removing a Monet to check out the back. We have to show and finish ALL sides.

Some of the additions the spice up the raw surface.

    I do both, painting on canvas and craft painting. I can vouch for the amount of time it takes. Paintings are faster! Just one of my "crazy-quilt" items takes from 30 - 50 hours. Really. 

     First there is marking where the "painted" pieces of fabric will go. Next comes laying down the base color. Then, depending on how many colors you use, you must create a fabric design for each base color. If you limit it to five or six, that is easier. If you go into the rainbow effect I have tried lately it becomes mind boggling! After all the patterns are in place, you then "stitch" the painted fabrics together with gold, if you find it, nail polish, or using a very fine liner brush, gold paint. Yes, that's right: every piece of painted fabric is stitched together.

   It takes quite a collection before you can change

   the original raw surface.

     Next comes the "antiquing" that ages the items and mutes colors into a harmonious whole no matter what they looked like before. I will use jarring, too bright colors knowing the blending with a dark brown paint tones it all down.

     Finally, you varnish it. That takes several tries as remember, ALL sides are painted and thus all sides need varnish. One side has to dry before you can coat the other. It you are using an outdoor varnish, this takes several days.

     I am not complaining, I am explaining. I hope that the next time you see a beautiful, hand painted, one of a kind, original craft item you realize that while its beginning may have been humble, the time it took to create was far more demanding! 

   Where the Magic happens. From what 

   appears to be chaos amazing things 

   can happen!

      We can witness it here in Palm Springs at our weekly Village Fest. There, for a few brief hours every Thursday night, the main street in town is closed and like mushrooms, tents rise and artisans show and sell their wares on Palm Canyon Drive. Some are creating right on the street but many, if not most, are more than willing to create a custom piece for you!

     My dream, of course, is that crafters and what they create will start to have as much a following and value as what we call the "old" masters who painted on canvas. A few, a very few, have more exalted status but most do not. An "Antiques Roadshow" junkie I am heartened by the value of hand painted items of 100 - 300 years ago. Yet, a painting, even by an unknown will often have much more value. Hopefully my ancestors will discover a KrugsStudio item has value well beyond the price paid for it in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First century.

     Are you a crafter like me? While you play the summer away, know that I will be hunkered down doing the best I can to avoid the heat and, like Santa's elves, in my studio painting away as I follow to the latest book ... audio book of course!

  

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!

Adding Value To What You Buy!

     As a crafter, one of the things I am sadly aware of are my limitations around sharp objects. After several pulmonary embolisms, I am on the blood thinner Warfarin for life. For those that don't know, if you get cut, even the slightest scratch spews blood just about everywhere. So, as you can imagine, I carry bandaids with me always. This forces me to be creative since I can't build things.

We all start off with the same blank "surface." It's what we do 

with it that matters.

     I love painting and feel that I am pretty creative (take a look at KrugsStudio.etsy.com), few of the items I create with paint are very similar even those created during my three - at - a - time period. Because everything was hand drawn and then hand painted, nothing looked exactly alike.

     This week and in the weeks that follow until July, I am concentrating on Halloween crafts to sell in my store. I have a bunch of unpainted items!!! I figure by the end of June I will be sick of orange and then can launch into Christmas until September, where I can become sick of red and green! 

    It was during this orgy of painting and half listening to an audio book, a way to craft and keep up on the latest crime novel, that it hit me that anyone can buy the same things I buy at Michaels, JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and now even Walmart ... it's what you do with it that matters.

     No doubt you have, like me, seen the same "surface" in ETSY that you recognize from a purchase at one of the craft stores. What you also notice is how different their item is compared to yours or mine. That is not a bad thing. I look at it this way, there are many cars on the road, even though you are looking at say a 4-door sedan the variations and options even within one company, let alone the dozens out there, is staggering. Even the same car, in the same color could be very different from another one of the same model and color. If the world was all alike, it would be a very boring place.

Image a blank box - this is the colored one.

     So, it was this revelation that made me consider, HOW do I make what I do different from all the rest? Is it any different from a blank canvas? We already know it will appear very different if painted by DaVinci, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Monet or Warhol. Its the same blank canvas but oh how different it can become.

     In this case I'm considering a light box I painted. It was fun and I painted pumpkins from a ghost pumpkin to a deep orange one. It has flashing "'ghost" lights even. Nice enough. But, looking at all the little pieces I also had, I considered, what if I gave it something more? If I want to sell it in my store, I felt I had to offer just a bit more, make myself different from the rest!

The same box with a tree
added on top or a sign on
the bottom. They appear very
different.!

      I  believe it is this difference that makes one artist stand out from the rest. As a case in point, consider the artist Jackson Pollack. He started as an abstract artist. Nothing special in fact. He painted and painted and had a few followers. After he accidentally discovered his "splatter" paintings, he was re-discovered and became famous. And truth be told, until you are standing in front of one (or are in room full of them at the Guggenheim Museum in New York), you can't appreciate the kinetics of them. They appear to vibrate off the canvas.

Palm Springs birdhouse with local sand.

      Returning to the box above, look at how different they appear when you add say a tree or a "Happy Halloween" on top. This is what I want to show ... value added. Sometimes you need to differentiate yourself from the original surface. In doing so you then offer something unique that you can also charge more money for. Since it is risky for me to use a saw or a knife I in turn need to be creative with the things I can buy and then add on creating a new piece with a totally different look.

     You don't have to spend a lot either. Case in point is a small mini birdhouse I painted that is a sort of a scene I see every day walking my dog. Clouds in the sky are often dramatic here in Palm Springs. We have sand everywhere ... lots of "beach" in fact but very little water. In the creation of this birdhouse trying to create this scene I realized the final, finishing touch was adding sand. That is exactly what I did! It came from the field behind me.

     Sadly, however, what you can't get is the money that would equal the amount of time it takes to create your masterpiece! I found that a canvas painting often takes less time to paint than all the sides, including the top of even the smallest birdhouse. Depending on the size of the birdhouse, it can even be much more demanding. The birdhouse above took at least as much time as it did to paint three 6" x 6" cactus paintings I recently finished. So I can only charge for this one item, an item that cost a dollar to buy and $100-200 in time to paint. 

  The finished sign painted on 

  BOTH sides. Count the colors

   ... and REALLY count the 

  hours it took to paint!

     The final question, is it worth it? For me, yes. I am not in it for the money. I enjoy the challenge of playing with different color combinations. To me each piece is a challenge and at times I dream up a design I want to try and then adapt it to the things I have. Boy, do I have the "things." In fact, when I moved twice in a year in 2016, a friend that helped me make the move said as he left, NO MORE CRAFT STUFF! and he was right. I have enough for years! I had to buy three more shelves for my storage room; two for the unfinished items and the other for the items completed for sale. There are that many!

     The other challenge is using them up and resisting getting new things that strike my fancy. I am in a position now where I don't need more but where I need to learn how ... how to combine things that are different from the individual items that we buy. Ideas are everywhere and it doesn't have to be new or different craft items but looking at the world around you also offers ideas. 

   The birdhouse above is a case in point. I look at the same scene many mornings walking my dog. Finally, I realized that this could be painted and made an interesting piece.

     I just completed three small cactus paintings, again, cactus that I see many mornings walking my dog. It wasn't until I saw them in flower that I realized how dramatic a scene they made. Tall green cactus' with pale yellow flowers against the towering mountains behind them. What a scene!

     You don't have to be a seller to create. You do have to be willing though to try new things. I have found that it is well worth the time and effort. If you're a crafter, it will be for you too!

Thank you for reading my blog. I invite you to take the time to read earlier blogs where my emphasis is to explore the ways art and design affects our daily lives ... and always has. I share with you what inspires me with the hope that it will inspire you as well. Comments are always welcomed! 

Be sure to check my ETSY store ... KrugsStudio.etsy.com. I am adding many new and exciting, collectible birdhouses and craft items. Many of the items talked about here will be for sale there!