A New Birdhouse for the Garden

This birdhouse was designed and painted to coordinate with the posts on the wheelchair ramp.

 
I'm always excited to add another birdhouse to the garden. Especially since the other birdhouses on this side of the ramp are already full of baby birds peeping and cheeping as I roll by in the mornings.

This design is quite similar to one of the birdhouses on the arbor at the front of the house.

I try to repeat some of the colors and patterns to pull the eye through the garden and pull things together with a theme of some of the flowers that I grow here.

The nice thing about mounting birdhouses to the posts on the ramp is so that we can watch them all from both the house and from our tea table in the front garden.

Lots of Projects with Daisies

I'm still wanting to plant a lot of daisies but not able to afford it to I'm adding daisies to the garden everywhere that I can. This season I'm doing it with paints.

I still keep changing my mind about the types of leaves that I want to paint on these so I'm trying everything and then outlining them with a paint pen so that they will show up from the street,

I'm getting a LOT closer to finishing the painting of my wheelchair ramp. It's the centerpiece of my yard and garden and will be joined with and arbor and trellis to match.

I even painted daisies on some of the garden gnomes to add more fun and energy to the theme.

Yes, I'd rather be planting daisies than painting them but this makes everyone smile and will have to be good enough for now.

I also took as many photos of then as I could so that I will have them for reference as I try to draw and paint them in the future.

Anew patch of Daisies popped up in the front yard and was a very welcome surprise.

Daisies are appearing everywhere here. I put some in the butterfly habitat so they can enjoy them too.

I painted some into a design I'm working on for fabric and plan to add a few other wildflowers to it before designing products with them.

I also added a few daisies to this old painting.

Finishing the Art Covered Wheelchair Ramp

It will still be a long time before the ramp is actually finished but now that the rails and big posts are painted you can see what it's going to look like.

There are still about 80 individual spindles for me to paint so that should make for an interesting winter. I may wait until spring to get it all photographed for you.

Making Progress on the Wheelchair Ramp

Exploring Colors and Patterns for Projects

I was kicking around ideas for painting more Dala Horses and decided to try this little border on an old pool cue case to brighten it up a bit and see how hard it is to paint.

 I continued to experiment with this pattern and others as I painted a post for the wheelchair ramp here.

I enjoy "playing" with color and designs while still getting something done around the house.

What I also enjoy about this is that it makes a smooth transition from the furniture painting that I'm known for to my Dala horse designs and bridges the two nicely.

It's kind of like "doodling" in paint and is a great day to relax between projects.

Pink Flowers out of the Garden and back again

We planted these from seed so I was very happy when they finally bloomed and eager to do everything I could with them.

First I started with a few drawings on bits of my outgoing mail. This one was on an envelope.

Next I moved on to a card and envelope set in watercolor.

  After that I rearranged the flowers and removed the droopy ones before painting them in acrylics on one of the posts for my wheelchair ramp.

I was quite pleased with the likeness on that and eager to get the post installed so that I could get the full effect.

It pleased me that these flowers had now become a permanent part of the garden where I can see them out of my window all winter long.

Stripes and Dots Painted on the Wheelchair Ramp

As you can see each post celebrates one of my favorite themes to paint. I'm enjoying both the variety and the contrast that you see when they're displayed together. It's my very own permanent art exhibit.

No one has really mentioned it to me but I did notice a gal taking pictures of it last week and today as I was out painting vines on the arbor a couple of people slowed down or stopped a while and watched me work. I'd rather that they'd stop and talk to me but I assume that they didn't want to interrupt me.