DoodlesInColorStore now open at Etsy

Well, it only took me forever to get an online store open again but we're finally here. Why so long? Reasons and stuff. As of the time of this post there are 4 hand turned pens and one small bowl available. I will be slowly stocking the shelves as I make more things. I'm also sitting on a bunch of unsold paintings from back in the early '00s which I will post for sale in time.

I have no schedule for any of these things, other than to keep making and keep listing. I'll get to things when I get to them.

Click here to visit DoodlesInColorStore

6" Cherry and Walnut bowl for auction!

Update - 10/15/15: Sold! To the man in the funny hat! (He wasn't actually wearing a funny hat, but it was sold to a human being in a human transaction. No internet required. How bout that!?)

Update - 7/21/15: This was a fail. Several auctions and no bids.

Auction On! This bowl is available for auction at eBay. 100% of the proceeds go to the USO.

Auction Ends: ...well, it doesn't really end until someone bids on it. By that I mean I'm just going to relist it over and over and over again till someone bids on it. I will try to keep the link below updated every time I relist.

Details about: Lightly damaged 6"x2" cherry and walnut hand turned wooden bowl. NR

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From left to right, Cherry, cherry, walnut with mystery wood dot, cherry, cherry.

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Experimental Bowl

Been working on this bowl for quite a while now. It was difficult because pieces had to be glued together, cut and sanded, then glued to other pieces that had already been glued and cut and sanded, and then that arrangement had to be cut and sanded and glued to even more bits. So yeah.... phew!  (Also, I don't have a power sander. Hand sanding takes forever.)

The bottom of the bowl is a dark piece of Birdseye Maple and the darker strips on the top are random butcher block bits from the scrap box along with some lighter colored Birdseye Maple strips. The ovals are butcher block wood and thin bits leftover from previous projects. The oval shape comes from the turning process, they were rectangular strips when I glued 'em on. One of these projects I'll have to take stage by stage pics.

I lazily sanded to 600 grit (many hard to see scratches remain), finished with a couple coats of Formby's Tung Oil Finish, and polished with EEE Ultra Shine. It's an easy finish, but the Formby's needs 12 hours between coats and one just isn't enough. 2-3 coats adds a little more depth so some more patience is required. I also gave the last coat of Fromby's a 3 day cure before polishing. I think that's what it says to do on the bottle?

It's a nice little bowl. A bit deeper than previous projects, I'm learning that there's a limit to how far I want to go. The deeper you dig, the sketchier the operation. That lesson has put a hold on some of my taller ideas, at least until I find a comfortable solution.

Also, turning maple is a pain in my ass, but hot damn it looks good.

Trials and errors. Mostly errors. Mostly.

Some people like to call mistakes "learning experiences", but that's only true if something has been learned.  October was a month of problems and figuring out how to figure out the solutions.  The slideshow shows the results of some of those adventures, but there's no way to show you how much time was involved.

It takes a lot of patience to sand out every visible tool mark, tear out, & scratch, and then comes finishing. Just because they put the word "finish" on the bottle doesn't mean you're actually finished. Once the finish is dry (up to 12 hours after application depending on product), the ridges and uneven spots need to be scuffed out, which can take as long as sanding.  When that's done, it's time for polishing!  The small cherry bowl in the slideshow was the learning piece. The second bowl went a lot faster.

...And then there was the curly maple mushroom. Ug. Yeah. I've picked up a few wood turning books and when it comes to basic and advanced techniques they're very helpful.  But when it comes to detailed project instructions, they can be the worse than useless. That mushroom took me two weeks because it took that long to go through the book's processes, fail at nearly every step, and then figure out how to actually do it properly.

It took the better part of a week alone to redraw the book's plans with accurate measurements and work out a decent process sheet. The process sheet took the most time because there's no way to know if the process works until attempted, failed, adjusted, redrawn, and reattempted. Once that was all done, turning the mushroom itself took less than a day.  It was all very frustrating so I didn't bother with fine finishing. Just gave it a quick protective coat on the outside and ignored the inside.  There will be more of these.  I didn't walk through that particular Hell to not get to Heaven.

I also have other projects I've been working on.  Some have been included in the slideshow and some have not.  Ran into many similar problems with these projects and they've taken as much time to design, process, attempt, fail, correct, and repeat as needed. 

And that pretty much sums up the month of October!  Lots done, lots failed, lessons learned (potentially), little to show.

Woodturning (The First Batch)

     I'm all in with wood turning. This is satisfying my need to make things very nicely. The pics above are my first handful of photo worthy wood turnings. They're displayed in order of manufacture (mostly).

     So far I'm liking simple segmented pieces more than the solid wood. Putting different wood together gives a piece more "pop" than a solo act, but there's also nothing quite like a container where the grain on top and bottom line up. I guess they both have their awesomeness-es.

     The focus of this first batch was simply to make a presentable final product. That means a pleasing form (to me anyway), no tool marks, no scratches, and an even finish and/or polish. The photos are pretty much that entire learning process. The last few bowls in the slideshow actually exceeded my expectations.

So... yay!

Welcome to doodles in color!

Update 9/22/12: All watercolor and oil paintings are now posted in all their higher resolution glory. The results were, in fact, worth it. Yay!

The new site is active, and full! All my old paintings are back online.  I know, right? I can't believe it myself. Now all I gotta do is get better images of them.

Here's the trick, most of my painting scans come from the turn of the century. Back then 1024x768 was a dream!

Dream I say! 

The point is, most my files are pretty small. The good news is I have the original hi res (sort of) scans of (hopefully) all my old paintings, so I'm thinking about reprocessing them so they look better. 32 cd roms worth of scans to be specific. It's a lot of dull work but the results will be worth it?

We'll see how that goes. I also have more wood turning to do, more photos to take, and I want to set things up to sell stuff straight from here. 

Time will tell, and my track record of keeping up a website is terrible!

Such is life.

I don't own goatlike.com anymore, but whoever does is using my work without permission.

My old website (www.goatlike.com) and artwork are being used without permission.This is just a public notice that Moniker Privacy Services is currently hosting my old domain name www.goatlike.com. Somehow they've gotten access to an old version of my website and are using my work to sell banner ads?

I don't know who they are, but they're not me and they do NOT have my permission to use any of my work.

The domain is theirs now, but that's it.

Finally got something to show.

My first turned container. Yay!

Wood turning is something I've wanted to do since 5th grade woodshop. With the exception of some time in a machine shop back in '07, I hadn't touched a lathe since the early 80s. Metal working is fun, but too rigid. Of course it has to be. T'is the nature of metal to be difficult.

Not so much with wood!

Figured it was time to try some 'new' things and wood turning is high on the list. I've been playing with the lathe (aka learning how to use the thing) for the past month or so and finally tried a proper friction lid container. It works!

Ha!

This is only beginning. Mwwwwahhahahahahahahaha! Oh! Details?

It's 2"dia. plain ol' cherry (swiftly becoming my favorite wood to turn), and about 2" tall. I sanded it with Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner cause that's what I happened to have on hand. Looks nice but I'd prefer something glossy and longer lasting. No big deal, this was just proof of concept. Fine finishing comes later.

So yeah! I'll be doing more of this. Yay!

Ignore that last transmission...

... stay tuned.

Complete and total change of plans.

Amber earrings. Still need fine tuning.Yeah, the paintings ain't working, at least not these days. So I'm making a switch to handmade jewelry! Yay! Why?

1. Not very many people buy paintings. Nearly everyone buys jewelry... and it's still art.

2. Wire bending is tedious and fun! And it's something I've messed around with for a long time.

3. It's a great excuse to have a bunch of amethyst around. And quartz. And fake Hematite. And other shiny things.

4. I still get to play with colors. That's kinda my whole deal so... check!

5. If I get bored with making a design, I can make a bunch of something else!

Still learning right now, but I should have some items available at my ArtFire Shop well before Thanksgiving.

- Mark

Update on 2012-11-13 14:17 by Mark W. Stevens

Yeah... fail. Materials I bought are too cheap. I can't sell what I've made. Boo.

Quick Update

Finally getting back to where I was before The Great Computer Crashes of 2011. Not painting, unfortunately, but reorganizing my studio / basement. Yes, I have a lot to do here at the site still, and yes, I need to get my shop updated, and yes, I need to paint! But first things first...

I gotta get the home base in better shape so I can do all the above right. It's gonna take some time. I will continue to post updates here.

Update on 2011-11-22 18:10 by Mark W. Stevens

...and now my email isn't working. Any email address ending in "goatlike.com", "markwstevens.com", or "doodlesincolor.com" will not get to me. Friends, family, random strangers... please use the form on the contact page here at the site to get in touch with me.

It sends emails to a web based email account so I don't have to rely on anything but the internet... and we all know how reliable that is! Bwwwwwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha  heh... eh... ahem.

'Scuse me, too many computer related problems the past couple months. Gettin a little punchy.

Gallery of paintings from 2011 is done.

My gallery of paintings from 2011 is done! The bad news is, I still have about 95% of my paintings left to post. Arg!!!

Eh... beats commuting.

Update

on 2011-11-03 18:49 by Mark W. Stevens

The paintings that are available for sale have links to their respective ArtFire sales pages in the descriptions.

Starting over, or just moving...

...either way, I gots work to do.

Here's the deal, I've had my site hosted by Network Solutions for years now, and it hasn't been all smooth sailing. In fact, it's been a bit of a pain in the ass since the beginning. Without getting into too many details my hosting relationship with them is over.

So, now I'm here at squarespace.com and so far things are looking very good. As of this writing, I've only got the 2011 painting gallery up and even then... it's not complete and I want to reprocess the pictures so they look better.

But that's ok!

I've still got a lot to learn about how this new home works and how I want to set it up, but things are rolling and getting that ball started is always the hardest part.

Keep an eye on my twitter accounts for updates and stuff, I have 2 of them:

doodlesincolor - strictly business

timegoat - mostly nonsense

And please bear with me as I get back up and rolling. Moving a website with over 300 paintings can be a real pain in the ass.

- Mark