Chalk One Up.

Remember me telling you about my niece and that sidewalk chalk art competition she was in. I got a call last night and it was her telling me she got 1st place. Funny thing is she calls and tells Misty " I want to talk to Uncle Mike! " Misty was absolutely in shock that she got skipped and didn't want to talk to her aunt and I was the one she wanted to tell. What can I say, us artsy people gotta stick together. Nothing like getting 1st place and some cash to get that creativity in motion.

Congratulations Rowan and thanks for inviting us to see it in person. I'm proud of you.

Artsy Weekend

This past weekend we went back to the homeland for what we thought was just a baby shower on Sunday but quickly turned into a packed day and a half.

We got a call from my sister in law saying that our niece was one of three to be selected to do chalk art drawings for an art and jazz fest on the uptown streets. They ranged from kindergarten to high school and then a few older area professional artists also contributed. It was amazing to see how some of these artists manipulated the chalk with brushes and water. Really cool.

Here is my niece showing off her artwork. I believe she called it Upside Down City or something similar to that.

This was one of the older participants. His use of shading was incredible.

Then there was this character. I had no idea what he created, however he was killing it in his bib overalls with no undershirt. Top notch artistry. 

There were tons of street vendors and of course Ki had to get his face painted which did turn out really cool. He sat there so patient and so still except for his hands which he kept lightly clapping in anticipation.

Here he is helping Gi Gi make a peach pie. A few of his teeth got wiped away after a few drinks and the classic shirt sleeve wipe

I guess Sunday wasn't all that busy. The guys hung out and watched football and let the boys swim while the ladies went to the shower. Oh and one more thing...I helped my brother in law make his first batch of American Wheat Beer. Very cool and involved process which smelled fantastic as everything boiled and cooked. Can't wait to bottle it up and enjoy it around a fire this fall.

We're back home and worn out but it was a lot of fun and relaxing at the same time.

Get Ready For Some Tooting!!

Lately I have had some pretty decent projects happening around the casa. Lots of inspiration from some of my favorite blogs, lots of ideas from places I have eaten, and now just trying to tie it all together. My problem used to be that I really didn't have a direction so I would just buy a bunch of crap on clearance that I didn't or couldn't use and be unhappy with the space. I've been hearing people say buy a "WOW" piece and design around that, sooooo thats what I'm trying to do. I'm also getting very jealous of all the nice photos that people take, the right lighting, the right time of day, the right mood, obviously the right camera helps a ton too. This weekends project is to work on getting some pics of the stuff that I have been doing and get it on here. Toot my horn so to speak, it's sometimes hard to do, but hey isn't that why we blog anyway, to virtually toot our horn. Next week I promise lots of tooting and more toot worthy pics and projects.

Until the tooting begins check out these cool videos.


RUSH / skate now from RUSH on Vimeo.


Pedalhard: Sac Town comp. from CHOP EM DOWN on Vimeo.

Dude....Nice

This pretty much sums up the way it feels to build and work with wood. I think for this year I am going to focus on learning the old styles of building, less paint and more grain. We'll see how it goes.

Enjoy -

Grain & Gram: Blair Sligar, Woodworker from Grain & Gram on Vimeo.

Snow Daze Revisited

Ki likes when I do stuff with skulls, maybe its the rock n roll metal gene I passed down to him. I hate hate hate glitter, but these glitter glue pens were kind of cool and I enjoy art projects with him, so I sucked it up and painted with him. He made everything from fighting pirate boats to diamond eating fish. I'll add his pieces when they are fully dry and no glitter flakes off.