Pottery Barn and Why so many people like it

Texture, natural, rope, shells, birds, candles, white, wicker, metal, decorations, rocks, moss...a bit for everyone. So, I can't afford it; even when items are on sale. I need to make renditions of various items and the way pieces coordinate together. I do realize that the quality of what I make is not necessarily the same, but it sure is fun trying.

I especially love how their products coordinate with each other. I love how they combine various textures together. I love how they put a whole wall of pictures together, and then juxtapose a table and ornaments to match. So, I ordered their free catalogues and cut out all of the pictures I love and wrote notes on the pictures reminding myself of items I have and how I could put them together to achieve a certain look in my house. I am an artist, and love collaging and when I am decorating, I feel like I am making a huge mixed media piece in my house.

LIVING ROOM

One of the next projects I am going to be doing is a wall in my living room.
I have a few ideas
1. Pulling my L shaped couch away from the wall and windows and putting two couch tables behind each couch. Then I can add a fern or various plants and a bird cage.

2.One of the walls, I am going to texturize, and use 3-4 colors of paints to create an Italian feel to the wall, then add old maps and a sconce and perhaps some photography of mine in various frames. I have to work at it first to see how it will work and coordinate. I will post pictures when I am working on it. I just need to get my acrylic paints.

Photography the next best thing-eye candy

So, when I don't feel like taking my paints,canvas and papers, I grab my camera and shoot away what I see and feel for the day. It could be shots of my art room, my yard, up the street, going away for the day, the clothing I am wearing...

Having photos is another way I express myself in my art, then I can paint from what I have taken pictures of. I don't have to deal with permission from other artists to use their photos, and then I have created two pieces of art.

All eye candy for me

Nooks and Crannies

This is my second score on finding items that can go on top of my art bureaus that have nooks and crannies to store art supplies like:

acrylic paint,

fancy tapes,

scissors,

charcoal,

sparkles,

ephemera,

glue stick

mediums,

ATC's to display

stamps,

inks

Acrylic Paint-Scrumptious Colors-Eye Candy

Eye candy, not to eat though, you can use this paint for all sorts of surfaces including glass, wood, metal, canvas board, stretched canvas, cardboard, strong paper

4th of July Petite Doll on Wood

A 4th of July Petit Doll that I am working on! I one day worked diligently, and then stopped and have been doing journal pages and shopping small antiques and ephemera to do some grunge.

She is handrawn, cut out and applied to wood. Tissue paper, inks, copy of a church from free Dover Publication, ink, colored pencils, a hand cut stamp of a cloud, and acrylic paints so far!

Creating a New Creation to the Art Room

This is one look of my art room about seven months ago. This was supposed to be a video I took showing bits and pieces of my art, my books, supplies, and where I hide them. I then changed my room where I added a another bureau, making it an "L" shape with the white bureau so that I could move my computer between both the bureaus. I have eight drawers in the white bureau, and four drawers and two cabinet spaces in my brown bureau. Guess what? Still not enough room. Perplexed how to make my furniture work, I just had my sons help me move the brown burea just a few feet away in a little bit of an alcove and voila! Space in the middle of the room for my easel and I am going to pull out my sewing machine and permanently place it on the brown bureau. I so want to sew for my collages and just won't do it if I do not pull out the machine and keep it out. I have a table easel on the white bureau, but also want a stand up easel to display my work so that I can see it often. I love having all of my tools out and don't stand "No" for an answer. I have to keep moving furniture and items until I achieve what I want. When I do, I can then work better and more creatively.

I have a small light table that is about 8 inches long and five inches wide. I have my bees wax melter, a wood burner, glue gun, heating tool, stamps, inks, chipboard, papers, glitters, glues, mediums, acrylic paints, goache, water color paints, christmas items, ephemera, large surfaces to do collage on, fabric books, canvas boards, journals, rubons, charcoal, pencils, brushes, chaulk, cutting board, markers, pastels, tissue papers, antique papers and books, french papers, carving tools, felting tools, stencils, books, magazines....can you relate???????????????

I am intending to make a chart of where my supplies are, and I am going to stencil numbers on the drawers (kind of like that french look)!

I am going to paint the brown bureau white so that everything matches.

I would have more room in my studio if I didn't have the electric fireplace and the window seat. But those are my two favorite items. It is cold in the winter and I love the look of the fake fireplace.

My window seat was created by a woman who made furniture out of different furniture pieces and knew I loved this piece when I first saw it. It had not sold over a year and she let me put it on layaway. I finally paid for it and got it in my room. It is a great little nook to sit and I can store items underneath it!

I hope to share and teach how to store and keep an art room organized in the up and coming days. Stay tuned!

Colors of Early Summer

Be inspired when you are looking at the colors of early spring, early summer and early fall. Just the colors themselves can give you ideas for new pieces of art. You don't have to paint the flowers themselves. Pull out these colors from your stash of paints or papers; mix paint on your pallete, cut random pieces of color from your scrap book papers and glue away.

Years ago, we had what was called color aid paper in art school. We would use this paper to learn about all of the hues, their values and intensities. Today, we have papers galour to play with from textured papers, shiny gold and silver papers, home-made papers, oriental style papers, flat or shiny papers; you want it, you can find it!

Take a piece of bristol board (a paper that is somewhat thick with no tooth to it) and paint different spots with your acrylic paints. Let it dry and then cut out shapes and glue the shapes every which way you would like on a piece of wood, on a canvas board, or even a piece of drawing paper. Get a feel of the colors.

We are so used to making sure colors match in our wardrobes, but when we see the lillies of the fields, and the herbs in our grasses, we see combinations of wonderful colors like the yellow and peach in the lilly, and the burgundy and mauve type pink.

When you are taking a drive, do you ever look at the colors of the weeds and wild plants on the side of the road. I have seen what looks like purple in the lime green colored grass. I am sure that the purple was not purple but brown. But, with the light and shadows, that brown was purple. So,paint a picture with purple and green instead of brown. Our minds trick us into thinking something else when we really see purple. Color is alot of fun. Play, Play Play with your colored paints!

Bride and Groom

"Bride" and "Groom" are the titles of my two newest collage/mixed media pieces.

My son and his bride got married two months ago and I finished these to get out in the mail for their wedding gift.

Bride and Groom are collaged on wood. I drew these cute little illustrations in a drawing pad, and then colored them with prisma colored pencils, cut them out and gel mediumed them to the wood. There is where I began to paint them with acrylic golden paints and many mixed materials for the backgrounds including inks, papers, stamps...

If you have any questions about methods, please do write!