Some Jobs Are Never Done

I know I said that my airbrushed flames project was finished but there was a little glitch. The motorcycle owner had a problem when he was spraying it with clearcoat. There was a drip, there was over-zealous fixing, there was smudging...it was ruined. Oh well, I got to do it one more time. This is my seventh (and hopefully LAST) try.


This was not what I wanted to be doing on my days off. Actually, I wanted to paint my shed. I bought some second-hand cans of paint from the Habitat Store. I found 3 gallons of brownish paint and a pint of white so that I can mix them to make a (hopefully) nice color. The gallons were only $5 and the pints were $2.

I have 2 more days before I have to go back to work but a storm is moving in so I don't think I will be painting tomorrow. That's ok, there are a lot of weekends left in the year.

Relaxing Weekend...No Money Spent

It was a nice relaxing weekend. I stayed away from all of the stores (including the online ones). The weather was sunny and 75F but very windy. It was my last free weekend for a while because I'll be visiting my family, where the weather is cold, for Thanksgiving. I was inspired by Lizzie's list of chores for the weekend and did some cleaning of my own. Also, my neighbor wanted to see my RV so that was double motivation. This is the cleanest it has been in a while. I took pictures because it won't stay this clean very long.

And I added some highlights to the motorcycle tank. I'm a little happier with it so I will give it back to the owner tomorrow and hope I never see it again (except for on his motorcycle).

This is what it looked like before...


It's interesting to see how different the colors look outside.

I have to try to adjust my attitude this week or else I will just watch the clock for 5 days until my vacation starts. There must be something to look forward to this week besides Friday. I'll keep thinking and maybe I'll come up with something.

Back To My Airbrush Project

This was supposed to be the LAST time I had to paint this motorcycle tank. I practiced 5 times (I practiced more than that but only 5 were picture-worthy) and then he sanded it down and painted it with the base color again so I could paint the final (flawless) design...no pressure or anything :)

This was my third try...at least it wasn't as orange as the first 2 tries.

This was my fourth try...I think it was my favorite but he thought there were too many flames.

Fifth try, tried to make less flames, didn't really work but he liked it or gave up on me doing it any differently...I don't know.


This is today's attempt and I don't like it. I know what the problem is. I need the opaque base color in a thin paint that my airbrush can use. When I put yellow on red and then paint over it in transparent red, the result is ORANGE! The only way I got my fourth and fifth try to look red was because I used a can of opaque spray paint that was the same color as the base color. Sprayed lightly over the yellow made the flames look red. The problem with using spray paint is that is was not smooth.

Oops, that just gave me an idea...if I use opaque red airbrush paint for the flames instead of yellow, then maybe the translucent red would make them blend in better. I want this project to be over with! Well, do I try to paint over what I just did or do I let him decide? I just put all my paint and airbrush stuff away but this is going to bug me for the rest of the weekend. I guess I can try it one more time.

Dogs, Tires, And Airbrushing Flames...Again

I know you are all dying to know what happened with the sweet, jumping, biting, hyper neighbor dog. Well...I am pleased to say that there were no incidents of the previously mentioned bad behavior. I didn't see the dog until I went to water my plants late Saturday afternoon. I didn't have my arsenal with me but I decided to try to act calm and dominant and hope for the best. My plants are surrounded by a fence on almost all sides except for a hole in the back where the dog could have come through but instead, he went to the gate and waited for me to open it. I greeted him, with the gate closed and said SIT because that was one of the commands the neighbor said he was working on with the dog. To my surprise, the dog sat. So, I opened the gate and scratched his ears. I tried to stay close to him so that he didn't have room to jump. Then he wandered away to investigate some carrot peels I had discarded earlier. He came back a few minutes later and I made sure that I kept my arms close to me so that he wouldn't get any ideas. I tried the sit command again, which he followed, gave him more praise and then I went inside.

Today I saw him again and I brought him some chicken scraps. Once again I told him to sit before I opened the gate and then gave him his treat. He liked it so much that he carried the plastic container around and by the time I got the container back I didn't want it anymore because of the teeth marks. I don't know if he has forgotten his jumping and biting game or he was tired or by telling him to sit maybe I gave him something else to do. Whatever the reason, I hope he is a reformed dog now.

In other news, why do I get flat tires on Sunday? It looks like this screw has been in my tire for a while but today I finally noticed it because the tire pressure was down to 10 pounds. I filled the tire with my portable tire inflator (a Christmas present from last year) and it looks like it will hold air until I take it to be fixed tomorrow. I had to drive myself to work twice last week and now I have to drive again tomorrow. I'm not saving much money carpooling if I am paying for my carpooler's gas and still driving myself!


For the rest of the day I tried, again, to paint flames on this gas tank cover for a friend. I am really tired of this project. This is my fifth try. If he still doesn't like it I'm about ready to tell him to take it to a professional. He can have his compressor back. I want this chore to be over! I am much better with making art according to my own standards than making art to someone else's. That's the reason I didn't go in to art as a profession.


It looks better in real life. The camera shows the flames too bright. If he likes them he will sand the cover once again and have me paint them again because the paint is too thick now. I just want to move on to other projects like maybe...painting flames on my shed? Just kidding.

When The Economy Gets Shaky, Stick To The Plan

I try not to dwell too much on the news. I can't control much of what is going on. The best thing I can do is to stick to my plan...no extra spending, pay down the mortgage, keep my job, keep expenses low.

Another week of work is about to begin and I have a bad attitude. I have to keep reminding myself that it is my job that will enable me to pay off my rental house and retire early. That will only happen if I don't quit early.

Here's what I did this weekend to amuse/frustrate myself instead of spend money.

I attempted to complete my airbrushed flames project.


I wasn't completely happy with it so I watched the Flames video again and ended up painting over it and trying it again 3 more times. Now I am completely frustrated. I had to stop before I tested the motorcycle tank cover's aerodynamic abilities. Maybe I'll try again next weekend.

And now for my usual chores. I filled my RV water tank with filtered rainwater from my collection tanks.


I did my plumbing-less laundry by hauling buckets of water to my washing machine.


I used the wash water to water my baby trees.


I defrosted my freezer and threw out all of the ice blocks that were once edible food.

Before:

After:

Now I know exactly how much food I have. I thought I had a lot more but frozen shriveled hamburger buns and veggie burger ice blocks from last March really don't count as 'food'.

My RV fridge seemed to be cooling well at first. The freezer side freezes but the fridge side hasn't dropped below 50°F. I was just thinking how nice it would be to have all of my food in my RV instead of half of it next door in the mobile home. I could use the RV freezer and ignore the fact that the fridge side won't get cold or I could shut it off and go back to the way it was with my freezer food next door. What I am not going to do is pay the RV repairman $80 to show up and $70/h! If I have to buy a new RV fridge on the day before I sell this RV then that's what I will do (we are talking about over $2,000 for a new one). My mini fridge works just fine for now.

Practice Makes Perfect, Working On My Hobby

I've been working on my airbrush hobby again. might as well keep practicing while I still have all of the supplies. Plus I promised to paint "realistic" flames on this motorcycle cover so I guess I have to keep trying until I get close.

The first try wasn't so good. Not realistic at all. I watched a how-to video and changed the needle on the airbrush (never knew what those other needles were for) and tried again.



Second try was a learning experience. I learned a lot about air pressure and how to use the templates. Still looks too orange and I think it looks like a horse mane. Not quite the look I was going for.



Third try, and I'm getting warmer I think! I sprayed the base color lightly over the horse mane flames and painted some highlights over the top. Then added some orange fire overcoat and this is what I got.



Much better. Not perfect but I'm afraid to mess with it too much. I don't want to ruin it. I'll bring it to its owner again and see if he likes it. I hope so! I'm getting a little tired of flames.