28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Eight

Number 28 is taking a bow to mark the end of this project. It's been fun, but I'm ready to get on with something that brings in money!

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Seven

We have been helping our friend, Stan, with his project at the Safari house. He is creating animal print cabinets by carving leopard spots, giraffe spots and zebra stripes out of various exotic woods. We spent yesterday sanding giraffe spots and, at the end of the day, I made a giraffe out of some of the spots and took this picture.

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Six

I'm down to the home stretch!

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Five

There's nothing left of this giraffe but the spots.

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Four

Leslie sent me the picture that I drew this from. This is Bea the giraffe and Wilma the Ostrich and they live in Busch Gardens Tampa. It's an unlikely friendship, but fun to watch..........

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeDOKVbAb6Q

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Three

My brother Jay suggested that I combine a giraffe and a brontosaurus. Here's Giraffeosaurus.

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty Two

There is a running joke on onemilliongiraffes.com about pigs trying to get into the project. www.onemilliongiraffes.com/?id=6696 www.onemilliongiraffes.com/?id=26025
This is my contribution to the joke.

Faux Finishing, Venetian Plaster

The giraffes have been a great diversion and I plan to keep my pledge of sending one a day to www.onemilliongiraffes.com, but I started this blog to have a place to post pictures of my work.

These pictures are of Venetian plaster and faux encaustic finishes that we have done. Venetian plaster is a particular type of plaster which is typically applied with a 4" stainless steel trowel. The plaster is applied in layers and the layers can be all the same color or several different colors, depending on the desired result. This finish has a luminous quality and is reminiscent of marble.

The first picture is a faux encaustic. That is to say that it is a faux finish which looks like Venetian plaster but is, instead, accomplished by using multiple layers of colored glazes. I guess that makes it a "faux" faux finish. This is Posta Tuscan Grille, which is in the new Marriott City Centre in downtown Raleigh, NC. We painted all four dining areas and the bar. For more pictures of this go to www.postatuscangrille.com

The second picture is the Venetian Plaster that we did at Southern Prime steakhouse in Southern Pines, NC. We rolled a coat of metallic bronze paint on the walls first and then troweled the plaster over it in a way that allowed the bronze to show through. The third picture is a close up of this finish. The site for this restaurant is www.southernprime.net

The fourth picture is of a type of plaster that comes pre-mixed in metallic colors. For this effect, we layered silver over gold.

The last picture is of a Venetian plaster which was applied in the traditional manner and then coated with a metallic top coat.

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty One

Here's another of Leslie's ideas.

28 Giraffes, Day Twenty

My sister, Leslie, e-mailed me some giraffe ideas that I have been trying to work up. I'm not sure I did it justice, but here's the first one.

28 Giraffes, Day Nineteen

A zebra and a leopard mated to create this giraffe.

28 Giraffes, Day Eighteen

I sent in a funny one for today.

28 Giraffes, Day Seventeen

Here's the Hump Day giraffe.

28 Giraffes, Day Sixteen

Giraffe Sixteen is having a lovely meal of Acacia leaves.

28 Giraffes, Day Fifteen

It's Blue Monday, so here's a pensive giraffe.

28 Giraffes, Day Fourteen

I know this is corny but it is Valentine's day, after all. Does this take "necking" to a whole new level?

28 Giraffes, Day Thirteen

Here's lucky thirteen.

28 Giraffes, Day Twelve

I had a not-so-great day and got home very late. Sketched this giraffe in about 10 minutes so I could get it in.

28 Giraffes, Day Eleven

Even though I got REJECTED yesterday, I'll continue with my pledge. Here's Eleven.

28 Giraffes, Day Ten

This is a giraffe shoe that I made for a friend's Christmas present last year. I took a wooden shoe last and had Tony drill holes in the heel so that we could attach legs made out of crochet needles and then I painted it in a giraffe skin pattern in metallic gold and bronze. I submitted this to onemilliongiraffes but they rejected it on the grounds that they thought it was store-bought and not handmade. I don't know whether to feel insulted that they thought I would cheat or flattered that my little shoe looked so good that they thought it was store-bought.

28 Giraffes, Day Nine

Here's number nine.

28 Giraffes, Day Eight

Here's looking at you, number eight.

28 Giraffes, Day Seven

There had to be a really foolish one eventually and Seven is it.

28 Giraffes, Day Six

OK.....I love them all the same, but if I HAD a favorite..........

The Safari House alligator table

We are finished for a while in the Safari house. The project is not completed, but we have some other things to get to. I thought I would post a few pictures of the things that we (and our friend Greg) have been doing there. The first picture is of the family room. I painted the mural of the homeowner with two elephants beside her and Tony and I plastered and glazed all of the walls in this room, the hall and the kitchen.

The second picture is also of the family room, but shows the Rhino mounted over the fireplace. Tony and I sculpted all of the stone ledges that are in the family room and kitchen, including the one that you see here.

The third photo is one I took of the family room while I was on a 16' high scaffold in the kitchen.

The fourth picture is of the "roots" in the sun room, just off the kitchen.

The final picture is of the dining room table (in process). Our friend, Greg, sculpted this alligator table. There is a huge glass table top that sits on the alligator's back and stools that slot into armatures under each leg. I might be wrong, but I don't think there's another dining table in the world like this one. I told Greg, though, that no man I know is ever going to sit at the "business end" of that alligator.

28 giraffes, Day Five

I've been drawing giraffe faces for this project, so I thought I would change it up a bit. How many giraffes are in this picture?

28 Giraffes, Day Four

I drew this giraffe last night. She looks very pleased with herself. The scanner function on my printer is malfunctioning, so I had to take a digital picture of the drawing.

28 Giraffes

This is today's giraffe. He looks a little like he's blowing raspberries.

28 Giraffes

It's day 2 of my pledge to send a giraffe a day to www.onemilliongiraffes.com and I did a quick sketch of a giraffe font to send. We haven't been able to get our of our neighborhood since Friday because of all the snow and ice that we got, but we braved the slushy streets today to go over to the Safari house to set up scaffolding. We're trying to finish the tree root sculpture on the ceiling in the kitchen. When we're done, it will look as if the can lights are surrounded by knotholes, roots, vines and stones..... at least we hope that's what it will look like!

One Million Giraffes

I've decided that I'm going to try to send one giraffe a day to www.onemilliongiraffes.com for every day in February. Some of them will be giraffes that I've already drawn, sculpted or painted and some will be new. The one I'm sending today is a picture of a giraffe lamp that I painted last year for the Safari House project. This lamp was made from pvc pipe by the homeowner's son and the resulting lamp was so tall that I had to paint it in pieces and then re-assemble it at the Safari House. Yes, those are "roots" growing out of the ceiling.