Painting A Butterfly Garden

What has everyone on the east coast been doing these days, aside from dealing with hurricanes?  I cannot answer for everyone else but for me, I've been painting a butterfly garden on gallery canvas.  First though, let me thank my blogging friends who wrote to check on me and my family, it was very kind of you and I appreciated your concern and the time you took to write.  We came through the storm very well at our house, no damage at all, not even enough rain to flood the basement.  We were lucky. 

I know I sure needed a break from thinking about the hurricane so I've been busily painting away this week to finish my latest piece.  "Butterfly Garden" is painted on an 8" h x 24"l x 1 1/2" deep gallery canvas.

It is sometimes the perfect remedy for what is going on around me, things that I cannot control, like hurricanes for instance, to lose myself in a new creative endeavor. 

I have had a few people over the years ask me if I accept layaway for my paintings.  Yes, I do offer layaway and am happy to do so on any piece of artwork.  If you see something you like but would like to pay for it in smaller, more bite size pieces, feel free to contact me and I will tell you all about it.

Things are going well with our house in Orlando as well.  We just had the home inspection yesterday and all went very well.  I wanted to post some inside pictures as the current owners have done a really beautiful job on renovations.  The above is part of the master bath (this is the first time in my life I will ever have had a master bathroom) they installed a beautiful cabinet for the sink, granite counter tops and a lovely mirror.

 

 

 

The master bathroom shower above has gorgeous tile work and it is huge.  The kitchen has granite counters, stainless steel and totally refinished cabinets, with a lovely tile floor.  It is an eat in kitchen (also something I've never had before and am looking forward too) that part of the photo is off to a side we cannot see right now.  It will be fun to show more pictures when we move in months from now but I want to wait as the other parts of the house have the homeowner's decor and furnishings.  I will wait till we have painted and decorated as we would like, before I show the rest.

Bits & Pieces

I'm coming into home stretch with my new painting.  This weekend I'm putting the finishing touches on it and going over all the areas with a fine tooth comb to see that everything is just the way I want it to be before I call it complete....

I won't show the painting in it's entirety until it is completely finished but at least you can see the happy bluebirds painted on their garden perches for now.

This little guy had to be totally reworked from what I had originally designed as his size wasn't quite right.  After a bit of a make-over though, he came out looking just the way I wanted.

Yes, sand dollar pendants are back in my ETSY shop.  I had originally thought months ago that I was finished creating them but I find, I missed painting them very much so I decided to start offering them again.  I did however put a few rules into play so that I would continue to enjoy working on these ocean pendants.....  First of all, sand dollars were my favorite, the surface really speaks to me as a fun, creative and just plain great blank canvas to work on in miniature so, I will not be bringing any puzzle, glass or wood pendants back to life, just the ones I love the most, the sand dollars.

Second and most important of the two rules to pendant painting happiness, no custom orders .  Custom orders are only available with canvas art, not pendants.  Unfortunately, offering that kind of work on my sand dollar pendants sucked the joy right from the air when I had to create them and that equals (=) no fun anymore.  I'm stocking my ETSY shop with whatever tickles my fancy in the sand dollar department.  What I will have at any given time is a mystery and I will paint new pieces every once in a while, when the spirit moves me, which equals (=) keeping the fun in my miniature art.

"Strength" Acrylic Painting On Gallery Canvas

Are you fascinated with the majestic stature and quiet beauty of trees? I know I am and that is what led me to create "Strength", a 24" x 36" tree painting on gallery canvas. I think sometimes beautiful trees are overshadowed by the flash and beauty of colorful gardens. I took so many beautiful tree photos on my vacation and as I walked around looking at all the different varieties, it really hit me that while the lovely gardens come and go with the seasons, the trees are ever-present all year long. www.artfulcreations.etsy.com

Butterfly And African Violets Painting Inspirations

Just yesterday I finished my Butterfly & African Violets painting. This piece was painted with acrylic paint on an ornate vintage ceiling tin.

Lots of my favorite color in this one......PURPLE!

The inspiration for this acrylic painting came from the 4 lovely African Violets I purchased a couple of weeks ago at one of my favorite nurseries. They always have a beautiful selection there, not just African Violets but just about everything. I'll be purchasing the Geraniums for my garden from them later this month and lots of Impatiens from them in the month of May.

Some of the inspirational African Violets in their new home by my Orchids and Maidenhair Fern.

My only delemma was which color plant to use in my ceiling tin painting. I finally settled on the purple and white ones though.......

This piece will be coming to my website and ETSY site www.artfulcreations.etsy.com soon. Enjoy the spring weather and try to look around for something that can inspire you everyday.

Treetop Chickadee Vintage Ceiling Tin, Note Cards & A Blog Break

I finished my latest vintage Ceiling tin , Treetop Chickadee, it measures 12" x 12" and comes ready to hang on your wall with a hook on the back. When I first saw this antique tin, I really fell in love with it because it was so intricate in design and well, just plain different from anything I had purchased before, I knew I had to have it.

With the embossed design covering the whole of the tin, it was quite challenging to decide what exactly I should paint on this one that would compliment the tin design.

I mulled over several design choices in my head for a few days, really unsure what to do. If I decided on a complicated and intricate design, I ran the risk of making this tin look like a crowded expressway at rush hour. : )

More so then any other tin I've painted so far, my design had to be something that complimented and flowed with the lovely pattern already on the tin. As I sat and studied the tin, it occured to me that the tin pattern kind of reminded me of a treetop somewhere high in the sky, lots of vines and branches twisting around. Maybe this treetop was so high up that you couldn't see it, you could only imagine what it really looked like.

This is when I was able to finalize the design and settled on a little chickadee perched high up in a treetop. I created some flowers, leaves and vines to coordinate with the design already on the tin. I painted in some of the embossed areas of the tin, with light blue and light green, to give it a very whimsical and natural feel. This little guy is now available on my ETSY site and my website as well.

I've also started to create a line of note cards from my vintage tin images, the first two designs can be seen on my ETSY site @ http://www.artfulcreations.etsy.com/ . They are a set of 10 blank note cards, with 10 envelopes in each package.

Last but not least, I'm taking a blogging break for just a little while to embark on quite a big adventure.... I will be going with my friend and her family to visit the Grand Canyon and some lovely parks out west. I'm leaving this week and will return the week of Oct 9th, no doubt with tons of pictures to show you from my grand adventure. I will be away from my computer for the week but Chris will be here caring for the 3 Tzus while I'm gone and he will keep me posted on what is happening in the land of the internet . Until next time....