Dala Horse projects

I continue working with the design tools and am painting some boxes to keep them in. The divided box in the background is going to be used to display and sell small magnets and buttons with my designs on them. Yes, that will be painted in a dala horse theme as well.

I was "playing with design ideas on this little horse and while it's cute enough it won't be included in my book or classes. This will  make a cute little gift for someone so no effort is ever wasted. Everything works somewhere.

I couldn't resist making some changes on the horse that I painted on Saturday. Everyone likes this one so it will make the project list and instruction sheet for the next Red Dala Horse class. the problem now is to remember which areas to paint first and what the best way to demonstrate the brush strokes would be. Keep reading, I'll get there...

Getting Carried Away

 Those Dala horses are popping up just about everywhere these days.

Here's an assortment of some of the things I'm working on right now:

2 paintings

2 boxes

2 birdhouses

Everything seems to be coming in pairs this week. 

Pretty Boxes

 As I work today I keep thinking of an old Kingston Trio song about pretty boxes. I can't quite remember the lyrics but it entertains me to hum and sing bits of it as I paint.

 The stripes had been painted first and it amused me to turn it into dots.

I think it will be quite and improvement, don't you?

New projects

Some of the new projects I'm planning will help organize some of the old ones. This cigar box is going to be painted up like the dala horse wall art I did recently and it's just the right size to store all of the little wooden dala horses that we're carving and painting in when they're finished. Making or having a boxed set of wonderful ornaments appeals to me and it could be left on display year around.

The partially painted box behind it is going to be done up to store, display or give the last of the miniature furniture that I paint from time to time.

 As I plan my design I try to work with the embossed and burned areas to disguise the flaws and make it work for me.

Art Recycle Challenge Painted boxes into other projects

These are panels from 2 different painted boxes. One in progress and the other completed about 4 years ago. The reason for the wide variety of subjects is that I was going to be teaching a community ed class and I wanted my paintbox to display the different types of painting that I'd be able to help the students with.

I almost sold one of the boxes once but the buyer complained that it clashed with something in her room. I still laugh when I think of it because my work is NOT something that you buy to blend in with your decor and I wasn't willing to compromise the concept of the piece by repainting some of the panels to match her place just to make a sale.
I'm glad I kept it now because it gives me a variety of artwork in one place that can be used a number of ways. I store things in the box itself but dumped them out today so that I could put it on the scanner and use the designs on a numbr of different projects that you'll find at http://www.zazzle.com/julia_art*