Artist takes her vintage approach online | recordonline.com

Artist takes her vintage approach online recordonline.com

A very nice article about my art in the Times-Herald Record!

Snowy Day #3

Well three days into my Painting A Day experience I messed up! We went to DC to visit our son and I brought my watercolors and pens and paper with all good intentions of doing some quick little paintings in our down time but it didn't happen. Just too much to catch up with and enjoy our visit and it went so quickly. His new home is lovely and we had a great time.
However my husbands back started to bother him a little last thursday after the latest snowstorm he was in a bit of pain over the weekend. But after the six hour drive, he couldn't get out of bed on monday morning and has been in pain all week. A trip to the doctor and some meds but he is still hurting.
So I am hoping to start up again tomorrow, we'll see how it goes..........

A Painting a Day #2 Snowy Bird

A sweet little gray bird watching the snow fall. I wanted a soft subdued palette of colors and I think this does it nicely. This will be listed on etsy later tonight.

New Year New Projects

Hello and Happy Belated New Year! I hope to be posting here more often this year. I was busy during the fall and into the holidays with a few craft fairs and some local stores that I have items in. But what I want to challenge my self with this year is a painting a day. I want to be able to commit to that daily process, document it and hope to see a growth in my abilities. So today I am listing the painting that I did yesterday on etsy. I will probably focus on birds since I just love painting them.
This watercolor and pen and ink painting is done on a page from a vintage ledger book. I am not sure what the paper is made from, but it is lovely paper to work on. I titled it "Snowy Day Bird" since here in the north east we are getting pummeled again!

Finished Projects!!!

It is so nice to be all ready for the holidays (as far as my house goes!) this early in the game. The decoupaged table has already been put to work as a bar area with great success, even spilled red wine cleaned up beautifully.
The little sewing table is now in my new dining room and is holding the silverware chest and extra serving pieces, oh what bliss to be so organized. (it's the little things in life, right?)
So I decorated for Halloween and I will have a party this year. We don't get very many showing up for trick or treat. Last year we had an all time high of 12, so having my friends and family in for a party is a great way to celebrate.
I also wanted to show a few pictures of a desk that I refinished. It has quite an interesting story, my brother in law found it near a dumpster at work. He liked the way it looked and brought it home but my sister couldn't find the spot for it and asked me if I wanted it. I looked at it and thought that I could break it up and paint on the top, maybe take the legs and saw them down for different projects so home with me it came. When I really looked it over to start breaking it up the next day I realized that there was not one single nail in the whole piece, it is completely dove tailed and notched together and you can see that it was hand made by a master craftsman.
It truly is my nicest piece of furniture and all I did to it was clean it up and use re-finisher on it. It is missing a drawer, the fronts of the two remaining ones are not right but I love it. Everytime I walk past it I run my hand over it and think about all the hours someone put into creating this beautiful work of art and hope that he or she knows how much I appreciate it.

My dining room project is really coming together. I am challenging my self with a 'make-do' attitude. I want to create a warm and welcoming home, but spend as little money as possible!
It is quite a challenge but a lot of fun to look at my belongings and try to use and reuse. This table for instance has quite a history. My uncle worked at West Point for many years and this table was put out to the curb from one of the officers houses. He brought it home to my mother because it did open up with many leaves and we could all sit around it during the holidays. It may have sat up to twenty of us! When she downsized, it came to me and I used it as a work table for a long time. We took it apart and made it into a desk for my office/studio, it fit under the window and between the file cabinet perfectly. Over the years the veneer top started to pull up and lose it's luster and had bits of paint, ink, glitter and glue all over.
Well it's latest purpose is in my old dining room area which is now a reading/conversation area. I wanted a spot to act as a bar and place to put out appetizers. I have been enamored of the old books that I have been using in my art and this old dictionary is being revived as a table covering. I just love the way it looks! It needs to have a final waterproofing coat put on, but what a conversation piece.

Estate Sale Table Project

This little table came out so cute. I painted it and even lined the drawers with a purple wool felt and it is going to be perfect in the new dining room.