TrevorCarpenter.com

My oldest son and I are working on a fun little garage project together.

As you know, I take my daughter out a lot, to shoot photography. We have that to share. My oldest son and I haven’t been doing something like that. So, I decided that we’d undertake a project together. It has been fun.

This project will be a framed chalkboard. My wife has wanted something like this, to hang on the wall.

We took a long piece of red oak and cut it down into four smaller lengths, to eventually become the frame. Next, I got to use my Dremel tool, with a little plunge router attachment, to route down a recessed groove along the back of each oak piece. I then used my chop saw to cut the ends to 45 degree angles.

Once they were ready, I glued and nailed them together, to form the frame. Once the glue was dry, I wiped it down with a nice oil/orange combo.

The chalkboard is made from an extra piece of plywood I had laying around. I had to fill it in with a lot of putty, as plywood isn’t the best for finish work. Since I was eventually going to paint it, I knew that the putty would be fine. The puttying took three applications, interspersed with sanding. This step was perfect for my son to help me. He was able to do some puttying, and I had him do most of the early sanding. I just made him a nice sanding block, by stapling some sanding paper to a small 2×4 block. The final sanding I did with my power sander, and some much finer sandpaper.

This is where the project is now. We painted the first coat of chalkboard paint on the plywood. This afternoon it is drying. This evening, we may be able to paint another coat. My son will do that one. On Saturday, we’ll possibly sand the two coats, and paint another one or two. My goal is to have at least 4 coats of the chalkboard paint, before the final assembly.

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A week back, I really wanted to hit The Getty Center with my daughter, The Princess. We lost our shot, and so I rescheduled for this week.

Yesterday, we drove down to the parking structure, adjacent to the 405 freeway, just down the hill from The Getty. If you don’t know about The Getty Center, it’s possibly one of the best and largest collections of art in the Southern California region. It opened a few years ago to some huge fanfare and has been busy ever since.

You have to pay $8 for parking, but getting into the museum is free. Yeah, free!

I actually wanted to take public transportation all the way down there. Unfortunately, public trans in LA is a joke. There are several different organizations operating different parts of the system. So, we’d have to get on a borrowed seat on the Amtrak train out of Camarillo. Technically we’d be traveling the Metrolink. However, they don’t have enough trains, or something, and they rent seats on Amtrak. Then we’d connect with LA’s MTA for a bus to the Sepulveda/Getty drop-off. Here’s the catch. It’s $18, per person, one way. So, the two of us would be paying $72! That’s more than two tanks of gas in my little commuter Scion. We opted to drive. If urban communities want to help people contribute to helping the congestion, they need to be cheaper than driving. Even with today’s high gas prices, it’s a joke to think that I’d choose a 2 hour trip down and then 2 hours back, for more money.

OK, back to The Getty.

The Princess and I had a great time. We arrived around 11am and headed straight to the first building. We basically wandered from one to the next, covering every inch of each building. In one of the paintings exhibits, the have this really nice room with several large pieces on the walls and a couple of sculptures. They are all very typical museum pieces. Then, in the middle of the room they have several tables and drawing easels set up. The point is for anyone to wander up and sketch your own interpretation of the art on display. There were many people of varying ages that wandered in and out as we were there.

Well, The Princess is a very good artist. So we took the time so that she could sketch something of her own. She sat down at the table and looked around for a bit. Then she sorta grunted an “OK, I’m ready.” She leaned down and began to draw. It took me a few minutes to realize what she had chosen as her focus. She was drawing a young woman a few feet from her, who was in turn drawing one of the large paintings. It really was surprising to me. I was even a little emotional as I considered what she was doing. I wondered how many accomplished artists would have considered to draw someone drawing.

I could not pass this chance up, so I shot off a few frames. As you can see, she did a splendid job.

We took a break for a late lunch and then continued into the Photography exhibit. It was there that I discovered that they want to show you photographs, but don’t really like photographers.

Let me clarify. No one really gives me a hard time. I don’t let them. Also, the average security guard is intellectually scared off when you start using 3 or more syllable words. I engaged him with a short diatribe about copyright, and derivative works. He didn’t follow. I allowed him to leave, and I shot my one and only rule-breaking-shot. “This one’s for Thomas Hawk,” I thought to myself.

When we finished there, we decided to head home. We didn’t have time for the beautiful gardens, nor much more than one quick stop to enjoy the view. I promised her we’d return once more. Possibly for a group photowalk, this summer.

Above all, I had a great time with my daughter, enjoying some beautiful artwork and taking picture together. She’s a lot of fun. Oh yeah, BTW, that was her school day.

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