Shut out at the ballpark

Today there was an early game, 11am, so players were already out on the field at 9am so no work today on the signs. Back at it tomorrow but more of the same on Wed.

In the mean time here is a picture of the Bigfoot art piece I worked on last week.





6ft X 12ft, that's a Bigfoot

still more ballpark

Yesterday we scraped and primed two signs and touched up the Copeland sign


Today I added the address to Leavitt Group and called it done and went on to painting Fields and the Active Club

more ballpark

finished two more signs at the ballpark today. about 6 man hours (I had some help)

Take me out to the ballpark

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by the president of the local baseball league to repaint the signs surrounding the field, as the previous sign.painter was retiring for medical reasons.

Today I finished the first of these signs, only 14 more to go :)

the signs are 8ft tall by 12ft long on average, a few are bigger and there are a couple that are smaller.

They are in very rough condition and require scraping and priming prior to any painting

This sign is typical of the condition of most of the signs, this sign is not yet on the list. One I will be painting is next to this one.

This one gets painted tomorrow with a few changes.


This is what I faced this morning after prepping last Thursday.


And this was two hours later double coated and ready for a few more years service

a little (more) Bigfoot

Last week I got a call from the Bear Hotel. They needed one more thing done, Bob Eding needed some lettering done for a new way finding art piece to direct people to the Intergalactic Headquarters of Bigfoot.

The crew at the Bear Hotel made a 6 by 12 ft foot to be mounted on a pedestal weighing 1700lbs that will be located in downtown Grants Pass.

So last Wed I went in armed with a cut vinyl mask and applied it to the styro foam that we would mount to the structure. After applying the mask we loaded a spray bottle with lacquer thinner and misted over the whole thing to get a raised letter as the lacquer thinner melts the foam



I left Bob to finish carving and mounting the foam to the frame.



I went in today to finish painting as Bob was at his son's graduation

The monument should be in place tomorrow, I'll swing by and get a picture.

Magic-Sculpt

The material that I use to cover my armatures (in this case the styrofoam) is called Magic-Sculpt. it is a two part epoxy similar to JB Water Weld that some may be familiar with.

This material however is not quite as stiff and sets up in about three hours and gets rock hard in 24 hours. It also does not have a memory so after allowing it to set up for awhile you can still shape it and it will hold the new shape. Once it is dry you can sand it, drill it, even machine it. It takes all kinds of paints and is very user friendly. I am however allergic to it and need to use gloves to work with it.



To use it, take equal parts by volume and knead it together until there are no more streaks in it, about 7-8 minutes.

After kneading it is fairly soft and pliable and very easy to apply, but on warm days will start to set up and get stiffer as your working with it.

I use a variety of tools to apply texture to the clay, the texture in my gloves, crumpled aluminum foil, paint sticks, you can even embed sand and gravel in the material. Magic-Sculpt can even be used in press molds to duplicate a multiple of small items such as rivits and any small repeating pattern.




Here I used foil for the bark and a wire brush for the edges of the bark.

I buy my Magic-Sculpt at Kit Kraft in 100 lb kits, but they offer smaller quantities if you want to try it out first.