Land of the Midnight Sun

Well it has been a while since I have added anything to this blog. I have many, many projects in mind and ones that I am currently working on. This one has been partially completed for several months and I just finished it yesterday. This is a 1989 Ford Ranger hood that I saw at the dump. The mountains are from some old wood that I got from somebody and of course the license plates. The letters I cut out and spray painted. The mountains are patterned after some images of the Alaska Range that I found on the internet. As always I think this piece looked better in my head. Thanks for looking. Let me know what you think.

The Aquabats

For Benson's Birthday we are decorating his room with an Aquabats theme. They are one of our familys favorite rock bands. If you don't know who they are check them out, you will not be disappointed. This might eventually be turned into a clock. It measures 30" across. More Aquabats stuff to come. I apologize for the infrequent posts, I am a busy guy but I am always working on stuff, just check it out every now and again. You could also become a follower of my blog.

WELCOME

Well this sign has been a long time coming. Me and Lisa made it together and it is not really what either of us had in mind but it turned out alright, i guess. Tell us what you think.

No Army Talk Allowed

Someone I work with approached me about making this sign. He had a hand written paper up on his wall in the barracks that said "No Army Talk Allowed" and wondered if I could make a nicer one for him. I gladly took his challenge because to me this was a noble cause. It was quite the undertaking, I printed the phrase off and then cut each letter out with an exacto knife and then, trying to eliminate overspray, I put putty all around the back of the paper to keep it close to the wood so that the spray paint would not leak out too bad. It measures about 10"x 34". In the end I was happy the customer was happy and I felt good because I had helped out in a worthy endeavor.

Idaho Pictures

Well, when we were in Idaho we bought our family Christmas present early. We had been wanting a nice camera so we got one. I went out to take some pictures and this is what I got. There was a statue at the perrine bridge that wasn't there last time we were home. The next picture is of the Twin Falls temple which, you can't really take a bad picture of that. The last picture was taken when I pulled over to take photos of this old barn but I was more intrigued by an old fence. I also took the picture that I used for my header.

Holiday Tie Wreath

Lisa found this in a magazine and since i have a whole bunch of ties we thought we should make one.

Leaves Art

This is somewhat of a rip off of something I saw at Fred Meyer. I changed the leaf pattern and colors. These are 26"x36" and are currently hanging just above our bed as a headboard.

Two Roads

My sister has always told me that this poem reminds her of me. For quite a while I have been trying to find artwork to represent this poem. One day online I found a piece of yard art that looked like this. I loved it. I made a smaller version that I took to our sections Christmas Party. I am gonna make a much bigger one for us.

DVD Cabinet

I am proud of this because

I thought of it completely

on my own. I liked the idea

that something could be a

piece of art as well as a piece

of furniture. This is a dvd

cabinet that has pictures of

old theatres, theatre signs and

drive-ins. The front is revers-

ible, it has stuff on both sides.

It has brackets that are made

to look rusty so it has some what

of an industrial feel to it. I will

probably make different pieces

of art to fit in the front of it at

some point.

Turnagain Arm Photos

Here are some pictures I took down in Anchorage.

Moose clock

Not much to say about this one. It's a 24" moose clock.

Est. Signs

I really enjoy making est. signs for people. Each one has it's own story. The Westra's were married on the beach, Derrick Hope went on his mission to Africa, Aron West asked his wife to marry him on a hill overlooking a lake and Lisa and I were married in the Boise Temple. I would love to make a unique est. sign for you.

Humpback Whale

While in Anchorage I spotted a humpback whale on the side of a building. It was in concrete but I thought it might look good out of wood, plus I wasn't sure how to make it out of concrete and I am not sure if anchors in sheetrock would hold it on our wall. I am pretty sure that may have been a run on sentence.

Alaska Railroad Logo

Last summer my family rode the famous Alaska Railroad from Fairbanks to Anchorage. I had 12 hours to take a million pictures of the ARR Logo. I found one side of a big electrical spool at the dump and knew it would come in handy. After the trip I decided to paint the ARR logo on it.

Pallet Art

This is some Alaska inspired pallet art.

More fish art

I like rusty things. I am no metal worker so these fish are cut out of hardboard and made to look rusty. I also like tin roofing. I found some old chicken wire along the road during a bike ride. It is exactly what I needed for this piece. Also ever since then when Benson sees trash along the road he always says "hey dad, couldn't we use this for something?"

Seattle inspired art

We spent 6 months in Olympia Washington and loved our time there. I was very much inspired by the creative people of that region. So even though we only visited Seattle a few times I wanted to have some things to hang up to represent our time there. This is a 24" diameter clock made from license plates and aluminum cans. I took this picture of Pike Place blew it up and mounted it on boards from an old pallet. It measures 36"x20". You may notice these pieces have somewhat of a recycled feel to it which is very appropriate for the Seattle area.

Fish Art

Here in Alaska we are surrounded by Salmon. So I guess that explains where the inspiration to do some fish art came from.

State of Idaho

This was inspired by other artwork that I have seen online of the entire U.S. made out of license plates. The shapes of all 50 states are cut out of license plates from the respective state and put together to form the U.S. When I saw this I thought it seemed easy enough but it has turned out to be a bit of a challenge. I whipped this project out pretty quick and am still working on the entire U.S. This piece measures 28"x40".
I have quite a collection of plates that could be used to create any of the fifty states.