This Summer's Capital Idea

So last summer's project was the triangular peak of the front of the Penny Mansion.

Lots of brackets, and dental work.

Can you imagine having so much plaque on your teeth that you can't tell where one tooth starts and the other one stops, bllecchh!Luckily there was a dental guy to clean 'em.

Lots of carved wooden swirly leaves and flowers,  

an  ornate shield and in the middle?...

The saddest, most deteriorated, most decrepit,  molded plaster flower you've ever seen.

...and once again I had to serve eviction notices to natures children.

So after weeks of fun with a heat gun, dental tools and putty knives, I was ready for paint.

 First I just, had to finish the plaster flower.

I had pieces to glue. Pieces to rebuild. Old paint to strategically keep for appearance purposes. Crevasses to fill, and after all that, it just had to be painted gold!!

....and a little tan so all that hard work would stand out.


This year I'm workin' my way down....

How To Zit Pop A Capital

by

Joshua Armstrong

     So you know what's cool about living in an old house, in Maine, in the winter, when it's butt chapping cold?

      "Not much" you say?

HaHa!, I beg to differ my friends.

 When it's -10, and the wind is cruising along at 35 miles an hour, making the wind chill minus what the crap am I doing here?!?..... That my cool dudes & chicks is cool!

and to make matters cooler,... then you hear it. Your house goes pop!...and not just a little pop. An I Swear to God, some where in my house a small fuckin bomb just went off!, Pop!

The first thing you do is pause the TV, because shit always happens in the middle of a good show. Then you run around looking out of every street side window to see how big of a vehicle some Dumbass was driving, as He or She, texted or drank their respective ways, into, what is probobly one of the most ornate sections of your home. Then as you do a Tom Cruise in your soxs, and come sliding around the corner from the parlor to the living room. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice something is not quite right....

Ex-squeeze me? What The Hell?

....and all over the floor in a bigger mess then what I photographed is this...

I don't bother looking out of any more windows, because I know what happened. It's kinda like a house earthquake. From the bitter cold, lack of moisture, call it settling, or whatever, my house Popped. The craftmanship in this house is so good that all the joints, even in the attic, are so tight, that when the house shifts in the winter, as it has done 3 times that I can recall, or witnessed, the whole house gets involved.

 Needless to say, It popped that capital out of its slot like a zit!

Sculpting time for Bonzo!!

Feb/15/2015  So,..now I kinda know why people do puzzles in the winter. And apparently, according to my wife, construction and environmental issues have nothing to do with popping capitals and cracking plaster. The house is haunted!......huh??! That explains a lot.

     Well anyway, here's fun with plaster puzzles.

 So the paint's off, the pieces I could find are assembled. The crack, by the way is a poorly repaired previous break from God knows when. And that's after I filed and dremeled gobs of  globbed on plaster from all the little nooks and crannies down the line. Who the hell uses an ice cream scoop to apply plaster to a repair?!!? 

Time to do my own filling, sanding, re-painting, and seeing if it'll fit in the same space it came out of. 

You know I'm screwed there, don'tcha? 

Feb-19-2015

A trick I learned from Tony Castro, who has done some of the greatest plaster, fresco, stencil, and mural restorations in Maine and the Northeast is to apply a concrete bonding liquid to old plaster or concrete that you're adding to so the new product will stick. I mostly use this technique when repairing plaster walls but for this job it's also a perfect application.

Some of the walls and ceilings I repaired before I learned this trick,....sadly, I'll be re-visiting.

So when I said I wanted to develop my carving skills, creating and filing plaster Acanthus leaves wasn't on the list.  But you know, it's practice at my craft, and I'm really having fun. (Don't tell my wife or the Ghosts!)

Here's where I started...

The right side is obliterated. The two petals that curl over on top are gone.

This is where I am now.

I've had to build up in layers. I have at least one more to go. I think I'll need to over build then sand and file down to the finish. I've never done this before and I can't find any info on "how to's" anywhere on the "Know-it-All" net, So I'm using what I've learned as an artist and the restoration I've done in the past. But most of that was preserving what was left not rebuilding. 

Wish me luck! I'm going back into the breech!!!!

Feb. 23,2015

Restoration is like drinking responsibly. You have to know when to say when.

I knew when I started sanding the nice sharp edges off my newly minted left ear, that I was passed that point. And that maybe I should start drinking heavily while I restore shit. I mean the edges of my capital's new ear were so sharp and pretty that if you listened carefully enough, you could hear Victorian women's ribs being bruised by whale bone corsets.

Sigh....

(After some sniveling and sanding.)

I had spent hours and hours removing paint, old caulk (don't ask me why they used caulk), old plaster repairs, smoothing the worst of capital's blemishes down, then gluing it together just right. Then building up the plaster curly-cues and carving them down to match the existing side. Now, I knew it shouldn't be perfect, because it's a 110 + year old molded plaster capital, and well, I know my limits. So before I went any further I thought I should go refresh my memory as to how the other 7 cute little Bimbos looked.

Yes!, Isn't that Beautiful!!

Oh Holy Puke Zit!!

The little Trollops looked like crap! I now have one capital, that after I get it painted, is going to be nearly blemish free and ready for the prom, and...and...!!! 

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth the First had nearly an inch of makeup on her face when she died???

   

I finished sanding. I didn't do half the stuff I was gonna do and I still did way too much.

I was going to articulate the leaves more, smooth them out, sharpen the edges,......

Basically I was going to turn this train wreck into an all day plane crash, anxiety and pants pooping included. Yea me!

So now all we have left is the paint.....no problem. 

Still Feb. 23, 2015

The first thing I do after fixing one my wife's leaky boots, surfing Craig's List for crap I don't need, is run down to my work shop, straight to my paint room and prime the patiently waiting little capital before I look to closely and start picking at her and sanding some more.

I'm figuring the grey will tone down the gold I'm gonna use a least a little so it will be easier to blend it with the others. 

Yea, that ain't happening!

Soooooo,...using my Super magical awesome Artist powers, I proceed to do my thing!

 and then.......TADA!!

In the spirit of honesty. That angle is so freaking awesome!!! That color doesn't match anywhere near that well!!! 

Until next time...remember Joshua's fist rule of restoration.

1.Fix more shit than you screw up.

Dreams Of Paradise by Joshua Armstrong

Maybe 30 years ago I started a series called "dreams". It was a modern art meets pop art time in my life. What can I say... But the whole thought process was looking into the soul of your subject and pulling out just one emotion. The first two are longing and desire. This one is Paradise.

THEY HAVE LANDED!!!!! and they masses scatter to gather their loved ones, most precious possessions and a change of undies.

I've decided to mow a crop circle

Sanding is not for the blind

I don't know what possessed me. I didn't want to go back, really I didn't... But I did. All day plane crashes deserve to be witnessed.

when she answered the door, his wife, Mary Anne, told me to go right up stairs. She said I was expected. "What??" I responded with a voice pitched where 12 year old girls had problems reaching. "How did he know I was coming?"

"He's funny like that" she sighed.

So up the stairs I tread. I open the door to the guest room, and there before me is the abominable masked man. I wet myself just a little.

"Do you know the best way to sand plaster smooth after you've applied it?" He asked me. I couldn't tell if he could actually see me or not.

"I think I do" I answered with all the confidence of a teacup poodle.

"Well, I think we both know, you don't. You hire somebody dingleberry! Cause is sucks big ole rotten duck eggs! I hate it!" I swear to god I think he growled. "But sands that, Get it?, you use the ugly lights."

We all know by now that I shouldn't have asked but of course I did.

"You take some strong work lights and you set them up close to the wall. Shine 'em the length of the wall. It'll show the ridges of the plaster in relief. So you can see where to sand. Like this"

And low and behold, what had looked like a pretty darn good plaster job, turned into a moonscape.

" Now use a fine sanding sponge or 150 grit. And be gentle. Your not trying to scrub skunk off your Alpaca. If you can make it look half decent with the ugly lights it'll look perfect under normal lighting"

He pointed out a few little waves and bubble holes then turned off the light and,....perfection!

I swear I was just gonna smooth the woodwork down a little so I could paint it. But there was that one little chip of paint, and then another, and another... I just couldn't stop!!! Oh God I'll never finish this room. I think I need an intervention.