“Remoted” – Day 432 (Saturday)

Before -- faded lines -- which look
cooler in photos than real life

After dropping a big chunk of money at the vet followed by a lunch of leftover pizza, the umbrella project began. Neighbor guy was home and got the umbrella pole out of the holder in about two seconds. I hauled it to the back yard, opened it up on the tarp, and anchored the pole through the hole of a cinder block set on its side for support. At ground level, the faded strips look a lot cooler than when the umbrella is open at the table.

The hose was dragged from the shed and the umbrella rinsed off again, and good thing, because the water that ran off, despite being rinsed yesterday, was a mix of dirt and pollen that pooled in greenish brown puddles on the tarp. Due to the puddling, the tarp was abandoned almost immediately. 

Leaves from some weeds, hosta, lilac, and irises were harvested to use for stencils. The gray paint was more tan than gray, and sort of faded away, but the navy looked great. Both seemed to dry much lighter. After using the entire can of each color, it looks a lot like camo, and a third color is under consideration to punch it up. There was regret over not buying the can of Chili Pepper Red that was briefly in my hand before doing the math to add up the tally and the frugal gene took control of the wallet. Quality time on the couch drinking ice water provided time to consider a trip across town to Home Depot for a third color of paint and that is where the lazy gene kicked in and the idea tabled until Sunday. 

After a can of navy and a can of gray.
The jury deliberates on adding red.

The process of setting leaves on the umbrella and spraying around the edges took a couple hours.  There was a lot of standing back and assessing, followed by more spraying. After two sprays of the leaves, they were soaked with paint and would drip. There are an unfortunate number of random drip marks on the umbrella, along with weird marks from accidentally including the hand holding the leaves in the spray process.  

There were several breaks during the process, mostly to drink water. After the paint ran out, another break was taken to allow the paint to dry for an hour before hauling the umbrella into the shed for the night. Tomorrow the project will be reassessed for the third color and either will continue or be declared finished. The suspense!