Project Yodeling in Detroit

I know it has been a while since I've posted anything on this blog, but a lot has happened. My old camera died on me and I didn't get a new one until a few months ago.

Anyway, this is a clip of a little social art project that I have been doing everyday these past few months. (I know, I need to get a life or cable at least.)

It's an ongoing project and this video reflects the idea of the project. Since it's about ready to snow, I'm going to learn how to edit videos, how to attach my camera to the car, and I will record again in the summer. I will also focus more on people's reactions because it's pretty amusing.

P.S. Apologies for the video being a little boring. After I make my first left turn, it picks up a little (it was a long red light).

Making Pills: Part VI

After I got home from work, I went to the studio to finish up these pills. If I’ve gotten anything out of this project, it’s that I really like Spanish radio stations. I guess it’s good to learn something new about yourself every once in a while. Today’s quest: paint the white halves of the pills.

Like with the other pills, I sprayed some white spray paint into a plastic cup in order to hand-paint the 28 pills*.

*Recap: It’s because I only have a glossy white available in the spray paint form and the brand I use doesn’t make that color in any other form. It's stupid.

Now that they are done, I’ll have to give it two or three days to dry before I can do anything else. Until then, I have some time to stress over the next level of my quest: attaching the pills to a canvas.

Making Pills: Part V

After I got home from work today, I ate a couple of tortillas, gulped my third Red Bull, and went down to the studio. My mantra has been, “It’s only 28, it’s only 28….” Music generally gets me through things, but my stereo has been scratching my CDs so I’ve been listening to the radio for this entire project. Since I’ve basically heard every song out there and now it’s only Christmas songs, I put on the Spanish station and that seemed to help me get through this.

Since the pills were dry, I covered the halves with the blue tape.

Then I painted them grey.

For next time:

I’ve got to wait a day or two before I can paint the other halves. I’ll check on them tomorrow after work, but I have a feeling they won’t be dry by then. Until next time, happy holidays!

Making Pills: Part IV

Now that all of the pills have dried, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was going to have to repeat the entire process again for 28 pills. I kept telling myself, it’s just 28, it’s just 28, come one, you can do it.

After removing all of the pills, I went outside and put the clay pills on the pins.

Before:

Then I spray painted them white.

After:

Doggie Issues:

While doing this project, I think my dog, Zorro, has been feeling a bit left out. He’s been messing with my canvases lately and today he stepped on and knocked over all of my pills. I think he’s purposely lying next to my canvases, which creates dents, and I caught him the other day licking my painted canvas (don’t worry, it was dry; but he’s never done that before). I’ll have to give him some special attention. I’ll give him a bath today and maybe I’ll bring him into work (shh!). He’ll be 14 years old in just a matter of days.

What's Next:

Anyway, the next step involves waiting for the pills to dry. Then I can start the hand-painting process.

Making Pills: Part III

Though they were not 100% dry, the pills were > 97.5% dry. I started at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday and I didn’t finish until after 1:00 a.m. on Sunday. My mission: repaint the second ½ of the pills.

I have been rattling my brain over what to do next with these pills. I was originally going to do a quick touch-up with white paint and then gloss the heck out of the pills with that glossy protective waste of money spray paint. However, I was too afraid to execute this idea after I discovered my bad chemical reaction from the capsules –you can refer back to the previous blog for that adventure.

After much thought, I realized that the only thing I could do was repaint the halves with white. I thought about covering the colored halves with tape and then just spray painting them again, but I realized that I needed to do a lot of touch-ups on every single pill that could only be done by hand. Because the enamel paint I had at hand was not glossy, I had to spray the glossy white spray paint into a plastic cup, and then use that to hand-paint the pills.

The Steps:

I first had to remove the blue tape that covered the white half.

I then had to tape the colored half (to save money, time, and tape, I reused the same piece of tape).

After spraying some glossy white spray paint into a plastic cup, I proceeded to paint the half white.

Finally, the pill could be placed with the rest of the pills and I could move forward and start the next pill.

I finished the blue halves.

Then I finished the green halves.

After were the red halves.

And then those grey halves.

This was all I did, but it really took a long time to do. I wanted to give up at some points because I was feeling exhausted, but I kept pushing myself because I wanted them to all dry at the same time. I also knew I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to paint them later.

The Problems and then the Solutions:

As I was doing this, I realized a few issues. I noticed that I couldn’t keep the tape on the colored halves, because the tape could remove some of the paint if I left it on too long (despite trying to remove some of the stickiness from the tape, I noticed that some tape strips had paint on them). I then had to go back and remove the tape from the pills.

I also began to notice that there was paint on the pins that was left from painting the colored halves. I had been placing the freshly painted white halves on those dirty pins, which was causing dots of colored paint on the white portion of the pills. As a result, I had to go back and reverse the direction of the pills.

What about the Capsules?:

After looking at the capsules again, I realized that I liked the texture. You may call this “defeater’s attitude” by just accepting and going along with the inevitable, but I began thinking that having those cracks gave the capsules some individuality. In general, some capsules have little dots on them or are a little on the powdery-side. The pills I made were already shiny so I thought the texture differentiated the capsules a little. For now, I kind of like it and I will keep them this way. If I change my mind later, I will do something about it.

Side-Effects:

Yes, there were side-effects to this project. I think because I had spent the other days painting with the enamel and the spray paint, that night I was a little on the loopy side. Because it was cold, I kept my studio door closed for about 9 hours. I felt a little nauseated and wore a mask for the first half of my time, but then I became hungry and went to the house and ate a bunch of tortillas. After my tortilla consumption, I drank some Red Bull and went back down to the studio. That was when things got a little weird.

I felt like I was in an elevator and I thought my eyes were shifting focus a lot. Even though I was painting with white, I thought the pills were turning a little blue or yellow, so I applied more white to the already painted white halves (time-waster!). Near the last couple of hours, I was focused on the lyrics of songs playing from the radio and couldn’t stop giggling when I heard some words. Yeah, I’m going to take a little break from the enamel for a while.

For Next Time:

I will have to repeat the entire process again for the 28 pills that couldn’t fit on the foam board. Yes, that means spray painting the pills completely white, then painting the halves grey, and then painting the other halves white again. I got through the majority of the pills, so 28 isn’t too bad. The following step should involve attaching the pills to the canvas.

Close-Ups:

Here are some close-ups of those pills.

Making Pills: Part II

So my quest to complete these pills continues. I didn’t have to go into work until later today, so I used the time to my advantage. Today’s mission: paint the second half of the pills and gloss the capsules.

All I could think about last night and all morning was how I was going to paint the second half of the pills. I thought I was going to airbrush the halves with acrylic, but then I thought this morning I should spray paint them instead so it matches the white I sprayed as the first coat. Afterwards, I began considering going to an art store to pick up a medium so I could hand-paint acrylic on the halves. Then, at the last minute, I figured it would be best to hand-paint them with the same paint medium as the spray paint. I figured that it would look better and I could save tons of money since I already had the paints on hand –no medium required!

Before I could paint, I had to tape the halves with that nonstick blue tape (this took a long time because I had to lightly push the pills back onto the pins).

They look like they're wearing little culinary chef hats.

Then I began painting the first batch of 40 halves. Paint it blue!

The second batch of 40 halves. Paint it green!

40 of red.

And 12 of grey. What? 12? Yeah, the other 28 couldn’t fit on the foam board so I’ll have to repeat the entire process after these are done.

I then began feeling cocky and thought I would try to gloss the capsules that had been spray painted.

Then I became depressed and hated myself for my cockiness. There was a bad chemical reaction with the spray paint and the clear glossy protective spray paint. The layer of paint began to crack immediately.

Experience the nastiness.

I didn’t notice this until after I had sprayed both the white and blue capsules. Now I’m kicking myself for not being more careful. Tomorrow, when it dries, I’ll check on it again to see if I’ll have to peel the layer off or if I can just spray paint them again –but without that stupid expensive glossy waste of money stuff.

That’s how you learn, I guess. You have to destroy some art before you can get something you like. Until my next continuing adventure, here are some close-ups of the pills.

Making Pills: Part I

Since I didn’t have to go to work today, I thought it was the perfect time to catch up on some artwork. One of my challenges is to get these pills painted, glossed, and then attached to a canvas (the canvas is already painted). I counted the pills today and I knew I had over 250, but now I know that I actually have 307 pills (don’t ask -I don’t know why the total is an odd number).

I created the pills using clay and wood (I finished this process a while back). Today, I had to create a base using foam board and pins.

Here I had to measure out the dots on the foam board.

Then I pushed the pins in.

I then went outside and began placing the pills on the pins so I could spray paint them.

Close-Up Madness:

Ha ha ha, different pill perspectives...

I thought it was funny how the 2 images above are focused differently, like all of the pills single out that one pill and laugh at it. Then, in the second image, the single pill is sad.

Afterwards, I put the capsules (also created out of clay and wood) on a board I found in my studio and spray painted those too.

I just brought everything down to my studio to dry for the night. I also went out and purchased some blue tape.

I’m really afraid and hesitant about the next step. I’m still debating if I will airbrush or hand-paint the pills. ½ is white and ½ is going to be another color. I have an airbrush, but I haven’t used it since I graduated from high school. It would make the process easy and clean, but the thing I don’t like about it is it stops spraying after a while. Even when I clean it out it continues to give me problems. I then have to put it away for a while and come back to it later in order to use it again. I don’t know if this is a normal problem or if it’s me. Someone told me it’s normal, but I think that it’s stupid. I don’t know, I think I will wake up early tomorrow morning and wrap the part of the pills I want white and then test the airbrush. Who knows, it may be worth the frustrations.