Animated Meat

It all started with a cast off doll bed we found in the park. All totaled, we put in around eight to twelve hours on this. Matilda was there at every step, from the trip to the fabric store to the final coat of paint.

Animated Meat #1 represents a couple goals I’ve had for myself. First, I’ve wanted to experiment with creating a zine. Second, I’ve been curious about lino printing for a long time. Both of those notions came together in this offering.

The content is a rework of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery post that lives on the travel section of my website.

I made 30 copies, all numbered and signed. The majority will be taking flight into the world over the next week or two. However, I still have a few copies. If you’re interested in getting one of your own, email me.

June 30, 2020

The thing about bird feeders is that once you build one, it becomes that much easier to build another. Rounding out the my recent trio of upcycled bird feeders is this little beauty.

Matilda took on the creative direction for this one, helping to make an old coffee container and a few wire coat hangers a little more vibrant.

Americans don’t agree with each other on much. However, there is one universal we have all accepted. At least one side of the house will be set aside as a place where object can go to die. It was in that rusty dusty mildewy part of my own home that I got the inspiration for my second bird feeder.

This project comes courtesy of a trellis that had been spending its golden years tucked behind an old rusty barbecue. Now, it’s living a second life helping out nature.

Normally, I tend to BeeDazzle most of the projects I make. However, I really liked how raw the wood ended up turning out. As a result, I left it unmolested.

Here’s some advice. Don’t build a bird house.

The reason being is that you’ll soon realize you haven’t considered that your new tenants will need to eat. That will lead you to building bird feeders. And, building bird feeders will keep you from completing the edit of your novel and the latest entry in the travel section of your blog.

However, if you chose to go down the same dark highway that I have, I would recommend making one out of cast off materials. The one I made is the combination of some illegally dumped pool tile, a broken casserole dish, and the base of a really tacky fountain.

Like many Americans, I am currently practice social distancing in hopes of diminishing the impact of the Coronavirus.

Keeping things safe has created a situation where I suddenly have a lot of time on my hands. However, I do not have a lot of desire to take a ride to a store for project materials. Thankfully, I stumbled across this video on the I Like to Make Stuff channel on YouTube. It’s a great project because it was designed to be made with simple shop equipment.

All the materials on this project were second hand and left over scrap material I had laying around. While plywood may not be the idea outdoor material, I sealed it with a couple coats of polyurethane.

I got the image of the eagle from Ed Emberley’s Big Red, White, and Blue Drawing Book.

If you know any nesting birds looking for a new place in Anaheim, let me know. I have a vacancy at the Animated Meat compund.

Here is what I’ve discovered about building for LOL Dolls. Those little party girls are always looking for a new adventure. They got that Dream House last year and they seemed to love it, but a fella can tell when there’s something missing from the equation.

They didn’t demand or insist on something new to party with. However, I could tell that maybe their disco ball wasn’t glittering as brightly as it once did.

To remedy this, I went back my stack of scrap lumber to put this one together.

All the cuts were made on my Rockwell X2.

There are some gaps that I would have normally used some wood filler on. However, because of the Coronavirus, I decided to only use what I had around the house to complete this one.

The commissioner of this work merely said that he wanted a “Thomas Caste” and left the rest up to me. As an artist, I like it when I’m not micromanaged through a project. Based on his face in the second picture, I think it measured up to his expectations.

Through the process, I tried a few new things. First, I used a Rockwell Blade Runner X2 to make my cuts. While it worked well for my straight cuts, I was having trouble making my curved cuts on the gateway. Thankfully, I had access to a Carvey. I wanted this thing to really be able to stand up to some hard play, so I joined the walls and towers with 1/4” dowels.

The castle is painted with acrylic paint and then sealed with three coats of polyurethane. Not a bad second life for some wood salvaged from an old packing crate.

Completed on March 23, 2020.

I started this box out back in November of 2017. My initial plan was to use a pocket hole jig to join the pieces and to use a table saw to cut the lid. I had no idea that the art on the box would take me until February 2020 to complete.

The wood is just some scrap lumber I had laying around. The graphic was done with four colors of acrylic paint. Since I plan to actually use this box, the whole megillah is sealed with a few coats of polyurethane.

Just in time for Christmas 2018, the good people behind LOL Dolls released a dream house in the marketplace. With a price tag close to $200, it was out of reach for Matilda’s fashion forward dolls.

However, we went looking for a fixer-upper with good bones and found them in an old Ikea Fliast. First thing was to open it up and flood the place with natural light. The paint scheme had to be daring and right now.

Since LOL Dolls roll deep with a squad of little sisters and pets, we needed to outfit the place with furniture and appliances.

Finally, since LOL Dolls like to party, we had to install a disco ball.

This was my second pass on my Lego Table design. This time, I went for some more whimsical colors. I also invested in a table saw for cleaner cuts. I completed this one in April of 2015.

Being a parent will change you in a lot of ways. Before children, I never stepped on Legos. After children, it became a weekly occurrence. In the winter of 2015, I made an attempt at designing and build an attractive piece of furniture that would also serve a purpose. In this case, it would be a place where a child could play with Legos and have them all stored in one place.

I made this one in the spring of 2014 for my friend Leo Garcia. I never took a picture of it before I released in the wild. Thankfully, he did.

I completed this project back in 2012. I gave a facelift to an ailing AV cart. Along the way, I learned a lot about working with metal. It still exists, but after being in heavy use in a metal shop, it’s not as brilliant as it looks here. I suppose it’s time for a little attention.

This was a project I completed back in the winter of 2012 as I was just starting to learn woodworking. The material was some left over walnut plywood a neighbor was kind enough to give me. I wanted to make something special to honor his generosity. I later replaced the handle as this one was a little too narrow to support the weight of the tool box. It is still my daily driver all these years later.

Back when I didn’t understand how social media was supposed to work, I used to make my own postcards to send out to locations that I documented on the website as well as friends who supported me through the process. These were a lot of fun to produce. The last one I sent out was to announce the arrival of my daughter back in 2012.

Way back in 2008, Animated Meat was a travel blog that I produced using Apple’s iWeb software. In order to fill out my entries and to take away from the fact that trained monkeys take better pictures than me, I used to include my own illustrations. Many of these were used to link to a location’s website, Facebook, or Twitter page. In order to make them I used a free piece of software called Paintbrush and a Wacom tablet. I really miss doing these.

These are all 2011 vintage. I don’t remember what the driving force was, but Mai and I made a few of these back then. Most of these are out in the wild somewhere.

I have always liked working on found items. For a few years back in the 2000’s I used to decorate booze bottles that I gave away at a gift exchange for an annual Christmas party. Some of these are still out in the wild. One of them never made it home from the party.

Here are a few acrylic paintings that I made in about 2009-2010.