I'm Ready for my Close-Up! | Phyllis Harland - Blog

I'm Ready for my Close-Up! | Phyllis Harland - Blog

A Walk in the Neighborhood...Park Hill

 

I took Mac for a walk yesterday.  Well we take a walk almost every day.  But yesterday, I took my camera.  This is the starting place:  Home sweet home.

Mac was ready to go.  Mac makes me walk very fast.  That's why I like to take him.  He doesn't fool around much.  He just keeps his head down and goes.

 

This is my car.  But we're not taking the car, remember?  We're walking.

 



 

 

This is the way we are headed. 

 

 



 





There is a stop sign at the end of the block.  You are supposed to stop here and look down.  There is the sewer.  When it rains, it overflows with putrid, festering sewer water.  It also causes a river to flow down our side of the street.  Which makes for a long jump to get into my car.

 

Hey!  That's my shadow!  And Mac's!

 

 

Lots of people walk their dogs around here.  Some nice people hang up these empty laundry detergent bottles full of plastic bags in case your dog punches a grumpy in their yard.  Mac carries his own bags on his collar.  We don't need these free bags.

 

 

So on we go.  Walking, walking, walking.  Oh, here's something kinda cool.  People put their handprints in the cement. 

 

Some people let their flowers just grow out over the sidewalk.  But me and Mac...we don't mind.

 

This house is for sale.  Price reduced.  Interested?  Ok, you can't actually see the house, but are you interested?  Because I can go back and take a picture of the house if you insist. 

 

 

Oh look!  Another stop sign!  F loves F.  Ohhhh la la.

 

 

 

Now we are at the Church at Montview.  This where we turn and head West.  

 

 

 

This is Mac's favorite stretch of grass.  You will see why.

 

 

Remember, Mac carries his own bags so don't get all fussy and freak out.  We didn't leave anything on the holy church lawn.  Mac thinks he did, though and that's all that matters.  Watch Mac go.  Go, Mac!  Go!

 

This bike has been sitting here for at least a week.  It's cute.  I hope no one takes it.  Oh look out!  Road work ahead.  I hope I don't get in their way.  Or bother them. 

 

 

 

Here's another artsy photo...It's all in black and white except for the sign.  Get it?

 

 

 

Well, that went over so well, here's another one.

 

At the corner of one house is a little library box.  It's called Little Free Library.  You can take a book and you can leave a book.  On this trip, I left 2 books...Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris and Cider House Rules by John Irving.  I didn't take a book because I'm already reading one.

This isn't my car, but if it were...

I would want it to look like this:

 

 

Well here we are back home.  And look!  Lisle is waiting for us!

 















 

 











Son Rise

 

"Son Rise"

Watercolor and pencil on paper.

5x7



Sketchbook

 





 

Prime Time

 

Watercolor, ink, pencil and collage on watercolor paper.

8 x 10

More Sketchbook

 







Sketchbook 2013

 

I'm still working on my 2013 sketchbook.  I have a new one waiting for me to catch up.  Here are a few from 2013:

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

"What's for Lunch?"

 

Watercolor, pencil, ink and collage on watercolor paper.

"All This is Mine!"

Watercolor, pencil and ink on Arches 140-lb. 100% watercolor paper. 8 x 10

Sold!

I sold 2 pieces in the last 2 weeks. One to Louisville, Kentucky and one to Toronto, Canada!


Street Dog Art Studio
© 2012 Phyllis Harland
Moon Over my Slammy
Wood, Plastic Goofy Toy
14 inches x 11 inches x 7 inches
This one went to my friend Nan, in Toronto, Canada.




Street Dog Art Studio
© 2012 Phyllis Harland
Michelle
Wood, Music Box Mechanism, Plastic Toy Cow and Dog
12 inches x 5 inches x 5 inches
This one went to Louisville, Kentucky.

A Few of Ben's Favorite Things

I never saw Ben without his cap on. The ball was a give-away at one of the Padre games, and the mit...we played catch every time we were together.

©2011 Phyllis Harland
The Entertainer
Wood, Music Box Mechanism, Plastic Toy Pigs
11 inches x 4 inches x 6 inches

I had built a cheezy carnival booth with popsicle sticks for this trio of plastic pigs I got at the Goodwill Thrift store. I liked the way it looked, but it wasn't built very well...so I rebuilt it with better wood and installed a music box mechanism inside that plays The Entertainer.

I'm pretty happy with it now...happy enough to go ahead and varnish it.

Dennis

©2011 Phyllis Harland
Baby Elephant Walk
Wood, Music Box Mechanism
11 inches x 4 inches x 5 inches

This piece has a hand-cranked music box inside. It also has a plastic pig from my collection of little plastic toys that I pick up in thrift stores, on eBay, etc. I get the wheels and some of the wooden parts from an on-line woodworking store. The other wooden parts, I cut from wood I buy at Home Depot.

I've made about 6 music boxes so far. I'll post more photos today. Sue is helping me get better photos than the ones I take myself. She has the skill and equipment.

So, Now What?

I have been making all these silly little machines. But how do I show them? Sue took the spinning chair piece to work to show Jacob. Jacob and Marvin own the sandwich shop where I have shown and sold a lot of my work in the past. But these can't hang on the wall. Marvin still has the piece and is trying to figure out a way to display them for a show. I have come up with an idea I think looks pretty good:





I've simply built a crude box around each piece and voila! It can now hang on a wall or sit on a table or shelf with or without the box. I can get the wooden slats at Home Depot for about 33 cents each. It only takes me about 15 minutes to measure the piece and build the box for it. Then I stain it with watered down black acrylic paint.

I'm pretty happy with this.

The Spinning Chair Machine

I figured out how to make a pretty good gear with my Dremel workstation using pre-cut discs and Popsicle sticks. This piece uses 2 gears at right angles which turns the propeller vertically while the chair on top spins horizontally.

This is about 11 inches high and about 7 inches wide at the base. I'm not selling this one online...I'm going to work on more pieces and have a local show somewhere.

New Piece

While I Wait

While I wait for Jeff to get some woodworking done for me, I'm entertaining myself with other things.
Like this:



This is going to be a depression-era shack.