January 2020 – Carl B Johnson

January 21, 2020

Dr. Ph. Martin’s Dyes

I first learned about Dr. Martin’s Dyes in high school, back in the Dark Ages.

I was one of the select students in Mr. Gaynor’s art class that was permitted to never complete any class assignment. Dan Gaynor allowed me and Chris Duke and a few others to do whatever we pleased in his class.

In my senior year of high school, I had only English and Corporate Accounting classes as required courses to graduate. I filled the empty slots with three art classes. Mr. Gaynor gave me free reign to create whatever I wanted. He had Dr. Martin’s Dyes, a vibrant concentrated watercolor ink, tucked away in a closet. In those days I did a lot of illustrative art. Continue reading “Dr. Ph. Martin’s Dyes”

January 21, 2020

Mosaic Wall

A while ago I started a mosaic on our wall around our back yard. Circumstances put that project on hold. Circumstances have changed.

This week Liz and I decided to bring this project to completion. Last Sunday we completed installing the tesserae and yesterday we began grouting the finished mosaic. We have about a third of the wall left to grout – it has been raining all day so that will have to wait for a dry day. It is so gray today one would think we were in Seattle and not in the middle of the Sonoran desert!

When the grouting is complete, I will post more pics including close-up shots of some of the interesting features.

January 12, 2020

100 Bottles of Beer in the Wall

Since I have some free time on my hands I decided to tackle the bottle wall I started about 6 years ago.

There is so much maintenance around the house, I mean necessary things like faucets and leaking roofs and keeping the palo verde tree next to the driveway in check that my pet projects have to wait.

The wall doubled in size today. Tuesday I plan to work on the mosaic wall, which too has been in a holding pattern for far too long.

January 12, 2020

Kitchen Back Splash

We used Christmas break to install a stone backsplash in the kitchen.

Our house is old by Apache Junction standards. All of the walls have been finished with a textured paint, so installation began with a challenge.

Using orbital sanders, we sanded the wall down to a smooth finish. Home Depot had tiles of stone, which I cut to size with a tile saw. Outlets were cut out with a diamond blade on the Dremel. start to finish, the project took about 4 hours.

I installed a new faucet with a brushed finish to compliment the new backsplash. The final touch was to hang a painting by New Jersey Artist Kevin Quigley.

January 5, 2020January 5, 2020

Polaris RZR S 900 EPS for sale

I am reluctantly selling my RZR side by side. It runs great and I enjoy it when I get out. But I need a trailer to haul it, and a trail tool kit and tool box for when I am off road without buddies in another side by side… the expenses for extraneous items are as costly as the RZR itself.

It is a 2016 RZR White Lightning S 900, with 2793 Miles. Of course the important number is the hours, as the mileage only tells part of the story. My RZR has 808 hours. Continue reading “Polaris RZR S 900 EPS for sale”