Julie's Journal » Painting

I Had a Bad Day

Julie — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:52:58 +0000

Today was a tough day. I went out to the show to touch up some outlining that had to wait till the two parts came together and found that the paint on the bottom edge of the marquee was peeling. You can see from the picture how the marquee has a strip of aluminum all around the edge framing it. I just painted directly on it. The enamel paint should have no problem bonding to it. I painted it 2 weeks ago! So I get there and the paint just on the bottom of the marquee all along that strip of aluminum was peeling. There was actually moisture under the paint…which of course caused it to peel. I don’t really understand how the moisture got there. Last night was the first night it was exposed to the elements…and it had to be from the dew I guess. The only thing I can think of is where the edge of the aluminum strip and the panel come together there may have been spots that didn’t get filled in with the paint allowing a spot for the moisture to collect and seep in under the paint. I am not really all that smart about how paint works but that can be the only way I see that this could have happened. I was really frustrated because we have a bit of a time crunch now…and I have to clear coat it tomorrow. I am praying that it will be fine and I won’t have another situation like that to deal with tomorrow. So what did I do about it…well, I decided to scrape the entire strip (about 1 inch) and then paint kilz primer on it. I wasn’t really sure that it would fix it for good…but that’s what I did. Then I painted over it and fixed up all the touch ups and now it’s done. It looks pretty good. I was pretty happy about how it came together. I had to paint the two pieces separately and so I used a tape measure to measure the points when one part of the ship or tree would end on the trailer so I would know where it would be on the marquee, but then I had to measure 15 inches in, because as you can see the marquee is shorter than the trailer. It will be fine, because we are going to mount some jolly roger flags on either side of the marquee and then all along the top as well. I think it will look pretty cool. The thing that made today frustrating was that I had taken the kids with me. I didn’t really think this would be a problem because it should have only taken me about 20 minutes to touch it up. But it turned into more like 2 hours. I hadn’t brought any snacks and the boys were fighting (irritating each other) which they rarely do. Jasmin was actually less maintenance than those two. And I don’t know what was wrong with Karson today, but it was bad. He whined and screamed and complained SO much today. I had had it by this evening and after dinner put all the kids right to bed. They were all asleep by 8:30. I think he was mostly just really tired, but there wasn’t an opportunity for a nap today. Tonight Sam left to go be with his mom and sisters. His mom is not doing any better. It’s hard. I was sad that he had to go tonight.

Down to the wire…

Julie — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:44:36 +0000

I have to get the show finished by Friday. Jasmin can only watch the kids for me during the day today…the rest of the week she is hoping to spend finishing painting the outside of her house. But I told her if the weather is bad, call me and she can come over and work while I go paint. I really don’t have much more to do. The biggest challenge ahead of me is the lettering. It’s really important that it looks professional for something like this.

Today I painted in the scroll…I think it looks pretty sweet (check it out in my flickr pictures)…exactly how I imagined it would. Then I put another coat of paint in the sky on the marquee and painted the clouds and then high-lighted them with white. They look pretty cool. I spilled paint on the floor 3 times today. I don’t know what was wrong with me, but seriously it seemed like every time I turned around I was knocking over a cup of paint. See, I mix a lot of colors. The colors I have to use a large amount of get their own paint can…the others just sit in a cup, and usually by the time I get done using that color, it’s dried up or gone anyway. I also use the cups because they are easy to hold on to…I can even hold two at a time if I need to. And when I am doing stuff like the clouds and the scroll that has a lot of blending…I have one cup of the main color and usually white and a darker shade. It’s maybe not the way the professional painters do things…but it works for me, unless I have an accident prone day like today! I got it all cleaned up, though, it just was a pain…and I think my toenails are still golden-yellow.

Anyway…I felt like I got a lot accomplished today. After painting I went to Economy to pick up some One Shot (sign paint). I decided I will use it to outline because I know it works and it will cover the paint…I will not have the issue I have been having with the latex enamel. But when I got there, they were out of black. But I found some in my old paint stash that might work. I am not sure if it will be enough, but I can use it till it’s gone anyway. So I will work on that tomorrow and hopefully the fact that the paint was sitting in my garage for a couple of years will not have affected the way the paint works. It looks fine to me…but I will have to test it out.

I have to finish by Friday because Saturday I am taking the kids and our (new) camper out to Somerset Beach for a week of Family Camp. (Sam has to work, but it’s close by and he will be able to join us some of the evenings). We are all so looking forward to it. It is really a lot of fun. We have gone for 4 or 5 years. We don’t have that great of a spot. It’s way in the back and no shade…but it’s not that big of a deal. And they have tram rides before and after the services. The kids have a program like VBS in the morning and they also get to go to the kid’s church during the evening services. We spend the afternoons at the beach…though I am not very excited about getting in a swimsuit these days. My friend Cary camps with us with her two kids, Jake and Abby. I love it because Cary is really organized…and it works out good for us. I am really excited this year about the camper. There is so much more room in it, and I think the kids will really enjoy it. Last year we were pretty crowded with our other camper…but it was our own so I didn’t really mind it. The biggest challenge is probably going to be baby Jasmin. She still cries when she goes to sleep, so I am hoping that she doesn’t keep the kids awake and stuff. She is almost ready to crawl…but I am kind of hoping that she holds off on that till summer is over, because having her crawling around and putting everything in her mouth could be difficult to patrol in a camping setting. Right now we basically clear out a 3 foot circle around her and then set her down…and she never leaves that spot. I plan to take the pack-n-play and the super saucer and a booster seat with a tray for feeding her…and I think I should be good with that.

Tonight after dinner, we all went out to the camper. It was really the first time we had spent any time in there. Sam turned on the air. We played with the slide. We checked out all the storage areas and cupboards and we cleaned some stuff. After the kids went to bed, I ran up to Walmart and picked up a few things…some groceries we needed and some 3M hooks, and a couple of other things for the camper. I am thinking I still need to get one of these though. There isn’t a lot of storage area for food in there. I will also miss my tall closet. We have a shorter one in the wardrobe in the kid’s room. I remember that Sandy & BJ (our friends who camped in it last year) said that she would probably have bought a drawer unit like that if they were going to keep it. I can see why, because as I was spending time in there, I could see there just wasn’t many places for storing food. Our old camper had storage all around the ceiling in the whole kitchen and dinette area, plus above the refrigerator. That was one thing I really loved about that camper. This one has more storage underneath though, so that could be a good thing if I can figure out how to best utilize it.

Anyway, it was a good bonding time for me. It sounds weird to you probably, but I just need to spend some time out there getting to know it and love it. I miss the old camper, only because I knew everything about it and we spent like 6 weeks in it or more last summer…and made a lot of great memories. This one I am sure I will love too…it is just going to take some time to get to know it. (Sounds like I am talking about a person…

Update on the Pirate Island Mural

Julie — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:38:40 +0000

So, I would guess I have put in about 45 hours so far on the Pirate Island Mural. It is going pretty well…the thing that is different than when I painted the Octopus Show Mural is that I now have an 8 month old baby. She doesn’t sleep through the night and it’s hard to get away for long periods of time. This is almost 2 weeks worth of painting…I finished the octopus show in two weeks…but some days I painted for 10 hrs! Its just not possible…plus I think this one is definitely larger than the last one.

Today I was busy painting. I was working on the outlining which I love to do, because it’s the finishing touch that makes it look so awesome…it just takes a lot of time. So I was painting and concentrating really hard and I heard some noises. Up until that point I had not really paid much attention to any noises because the building I am painting in has a lot of strange noises…but this time I thought I heard something fall over…so I peeked around the corner of the trailer and saw a groundhog! Well it kind of freaked me out…but it freaked him out even more…and it went back into his hiding spot and kept really still. I watched it for a while until I got brave enough to go open the door and scare it out. He didn’t want to go out at first, he just sat and stared at me…and then finally ran off. I laughed about it later…but I was kind of nervous about it being in there with me.

Anyway…today our friend Steve came out to look at the marquee to see about putting vinyl lettering on it. But we decided to just have me letter it. I think it will be fine. I am sure I can make it look good. I painted in the sky around the scroll which will be where “Pirate Island” will go eventually.

I have been having some problems with my paint. It’s a lesson I had to learn the hard way I guess. I bought latex enamel, thinking it would be easier to clean. The guy at the paint store assured me it would be just as good as the oil based enamel (which is what I used for the octopus show). I should have tested it. Now I am stuck. I didn’t expect the paint would have a hard time sticking to itself…I had absolutely no problem with the oil based paint. It always went on nice and smooth. sometimes I had to put an extra coat on to cover properly…but this stuff just slides right off. I called Shaun (from the paint store) and he said it’s because of the glossiness of the paint. So I have tried to buff it with steel wool…it kind of helps, but not totally. I really need another solution. Shaun told me that they did have some stuff you rub on with a cloth that softens up the surface of the glossy paint so it will take repainting. I might try that, since the steel wool isn’t working all that great. Of course, with tomorrow be the holiday, I am not going to be able to try it till Saturday. It has been really frustrating because I have to repaint things sometimes three times to get it to stick. That doesn’t work so well when I am outlining, so I am hoping I can come up with a solution to this problem. You can believe I will not use latex enamel for painting on aluminum ever again!

This picture is the only part of the mural that is totally finished!

And the pirate ship picture up above with the jenky looking windows in the back…I am in the process of repainting that whole part of the pirate ship. I don’t know what I was thinking when I painted it the first time…I think I completely forgot about perspective while I was doing that! Yikes. The second try is coming along much better. Probably post is this weekend sometime when it’s done.