Last night.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Home on the range
Oh give me a home
with square footage to roam
and a view of Third Avenue Bridge.
With Manhattan close by
and a ceiling that’s high
plus a kitchen, with range and a fridge.
Artist loft #511 in the ClockTower,
available now, no fee, for $1400.
no one is fooled, but who cares?
The interior brick in my loft at 402 had already been painted a vanilla-white before I moved in, probably to unify off-color concrete patching. I’d prefer the natural brick but stripping paint from brick is not for the faint of heart and I just wasn’t up to the laborious, dirty task with all my stuff already here. So I painted over it.
First I checked color outside in good light, and settled on Georgian Brick, Historic Color-50 from Benjamin Moore. A quart costs about $ixteen bucks.
Since I painted only a small 2 foot by 10 foot section under my front window, a quick rolled coat was complete in under 10 minutes.
Don’t worry if you miss a few little spots. It just adds character.
The latex flat undercoat dried in about 30 minutes, so then I could begin to add color and detail. The ClockTower natural aged brick has dark staining…
...and a white surface flush called efflorescence is fairly common, too.
So I added a bit of both. I brushed in darker paint here and there from a little 5 buck sample cup of “Charcoal”…
...then rubbed it out with a dirty rag, to add shadow and depth.
Faking efflorescence was easy, the scratchy side of an old dish sponge scrubbed off the new paint and revealed bits of the original off-white underneath.
I’m no faux painter but the effect in daylight isn’t bad.
And no one is fooled, but who cares?
At night under regular incandescent light the color grows richer and adds warmth. It's almost handsome.
And it sure beats the original off-white.
About $21 and three hours tops, including clean-up.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Good Lord, that’s fast.
The Christ Bike, a one-of-a-kind religious icon on two highly custom wheels, made an appearance at the NYC Motorcycle Show last Thursday and I was lucky enough to watch it roll in.
It’s being raffled to benefit the Rushing Wind Biker Church of Bohemia, New York, but you can see it through tonight at the Jacob Javits Center.
It’s a beauty.
Depicting the life of Christ from birth through crucifixion, this $ix-figure custom features scripture and Easter imagery,
...a reference to Christmas,
...first rate air brush painting...
...and symbols from the crucifixion like the spear and crown of thorns.
The usually spoked rear wheel is based upon a cross motif,...
...and the front wheel is a Star of David because afterall, Jesus was a Jew.
How’s it go? From the webpage:
“...a rocket ship on wheels. Someone took her out and went 134 miles per hour, and then the coward backed down with some throttle left to go.”
The, er, coward probably had a peace of mind that if things don’t go so well at that very high speed for a custom cruiser, the odds at least indicate heaven.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)