Starting a new painting

 The tulips were a Valentine's gift and as long as I felt like painting them I decided to imagine them in one of my favorite teapots.

I think it's off to a promising start, don't you?

crafting from the recycle bin

This was the image from the top right of today's letter. It was made from a piece of a note card and a picture of a bathroom rug from a catalog in today's mail.

This is the image on the bottom of the letter I wrote today. I combines bits of an old note card, some stickers and a picture from a catalog.

Dala Horse make over

I wasn't really happy with the design I'd come up with for the Dala Horse in the front of this photo so I thought I'd revisit one of my earlier designs, the horse to the back of the photo is the one that people buy on things most often in my cafe press and Zazzle stores so I'll keep some of those ideas in mind as I re paint this one.

 I'm starting out by doing a bit more carving to reshape it slightly. I like to have all the edges gently rounded and the belly. When I finish they look good as well as feel good.

Once it's been sanded good  I'll start over and experiment with another shade of red as well as variations on the design. I'll post photos as soon as I get the next part of the project done.

I like to keep carving, sanding and gently shaping it until it's personality and spirit start to emerge and it feels less like a block of wood and more like a creature with attitude.

I like to think that that little flip of the reins shows a free spirit and a wild streak that makes us all feel young and smile. For me, that is the appeal of a Dala Horse.

Much of the design shows through the new base coat and will act as a placement indicator for the new design.

I find the mood that I'm in and pain level can affect designs a lot too but there's no doubt that each horse is very different than the last as I refine my skills and continue to work on my brush stokes and color choices.

Plans and dreams come true

I'll bet you've been wondering why there hasn't been a post the last few days. As always I've been busy with a lot of different things and just don't have photos of some of it.

The most important thing was having a dream com true. Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to see my paintings and drawings on fabric and this week I found out that I can do it on Zazzle so I spent days
seeing just how much of it looked good done up that way.

I took some time to paint pine cones on another wooden horse that I had carved and painted and have been moving things around in the studio (my dining room table) as I decide what I'd really like to work on next.

Sitting back for coffee and taking some time to relax I noticed that another dream had come true and I hadn't even realized it. Don't you wonder how often that happens? We get so caught up in the day to day of life that we don't even realize when something amazing happens.

There in the middle of my inspiration board was a photo of a blue and white tea set and an electric kettle that I'd been wanting for a couple of years. The electric kettle was a rose floral and as it turns out when we finally got an electric kettle the best one we could find was blue and white and just happened to come with a matching tea set so the reality of it all was even better than I'd dreamed.

I guess life can really surprise you if you let it. sometimes I can't wait to see what's next.

Pine cone painted box

I thinned the acrylic paint to make a wood stain, and added gold highlights to the design this time.

This looks much better in person and depends very much on how the light is hitting it. The gold gives it a nice glow and helps to bounce light through the design.

Something about this gives it kind of a retro feel, as if it had been discovered in an old attic somewhere. I like that about it.

You'll notice that I've taken a much different approach to painting the pinecones this time.

Dala Horse Problem Solver

Here's a design idea for those times when a strong grain or stains in the wood wouldn't allow you to get an even basecoat to paint your horse in the traditional style.

The design on this one is painted with liquid acrylics and finished with several coats of a spray polyurethane finish. Both the paints and the polyurethane were in a satin finish which seems to work best for a project like this...and photographs better as well.

I like this combination view best.

Paper Bag Spray Booth

 I needed to put a light spray of polyurethane on this Christmas ornament but wanted to contain as much of the spray as possible.

My solution was to cut the side off a paper bag so that I could really see where the spray coating was going.
Using a whole bag contained the spray better but you couldn't really tell where it was going. Cutting it back and laying it down just made it easier to work with.

When I quit using this bag as a spray booth I'll cut it into pieces and use it up to lay paints out on as I work on other projects.

The other useful thing about working this way is that you can move the bag around and be able to spray all of the sides in one session which allows for a more even finish.

I'm using a satin finish polyurethane for this and fine that just one can can do several projects which keeps your cost down.

Pine Cone Box Painting Project

Putting the pieces together

Painted kit pieces

Painting the table top

I'm not doing any drawing out or planning with the design on this, just putting the branches and pine cones wherever I feel like it and really enjoying the process. When it's going well the time just flies.

As I look at this picture I can see that there are some areas that need more work and I'll take care of that when I get back to my paints.

Stopping to take pictures along the way keeps you focused on the overall design of the project and from over working some areas.

I still feel that this is going well, what do you think?