Giving to the community

I think it is important to give of yourself and your time to your community. As an artist, I prefer for the contributions that I make to be in support of art and culture or at least to be artistic in nature. Our town sits on the Allegheny River and we have a bike path/hiking trail that runs along the river. The organization that supports this bike trail recently asked a number of artists and craftspeople in the area to decorate birdhouses that will be auctioned off in April as a fund raiser for this cause. The birdhouses are all alike and were made by a local company. They stand a little more than a foot tall. Unfortunately, the wood was rough and the birdhouses are somewhat rustic. Mine had a very rough roof--too rough to even consider sanding down to smooth. This presented a problem when it came to deciding how to decorate my birdhouse and how to turn the liability of really rough wood into a positive. I settled on making my birdhouse a seaside cottage with weathered siding and I covered the roof in seashells. Since the roof is hinged on one side, I could not run the shells to the hip of the roof. Everything you see is painted on the birdhouse except for the shells.

The Tote Bag Contest

The Buckeye Retreat held a tote bag painting contest at the Saturday night celebration. Everyone was handed a small canvas tote bag when they arrived. There were bottles of paint and bowls of "jewels" set out for us to use in decorating our totes. There were a lot of nice designs. Some people only glued on jewels. Others just painted a design and still others used both paint and jewels. Some people just took their totes home unpainted.

I chose to decorate my tote by painting a bouquet of roses, daisies and berries tied with a ribbon. The choice of colors was somewhat limited, but I think my design turned out pretty well. Mine did not win a prize. The winners were a painted beach scene, a musical score done with jewels and paint, and a design done completely in jewels.

Basket Making 101

Last weekend I attended a decorative painting retreat in Warren, Ohio, sponsored by the Buckeye Tole Painters. While I was there I taught 2 classes and had the opportunity to take a class taught by Howell and Company. They always teach several classes where you make a basket and then, if you choose, you can paint a design on it. I was there to learn to make the basket, so I made sure it got finished. I chose not to paint it. It still needs to be stained and varnished, but it is a lovely basket, if I do say so myself.

Treasure Boxes

January has been a rather unproductive month. We have had lots of snow, it has been cold, and I have just not been inspired. Today I painted a Treasure Box. The Treasure Box program is sponsored by the Society of Decorative Painters. Boxes like the ones that are used for storing photographs are painted with various designs suitable for children up to age 18. These boxes are then donated to the Shriners Hospitals for the children who are patients to have a place to store their personal "stuff" in their bedside tables. Ours will be sent to the Shriners Hospital in Erie, Pennsylvania. It is a nice service project.

TAH DAH, Part 5

Here are some more detailed photos. There is a lot going on in this little community. The stairway wall faces the front door and will have a mirror in the center of the wall over a writing desk. The only details on this wall are to the right and left sides of the wall. On the left side is a school house. Since my husband is a school administrator, it seemed appropriate to include a school in the mural. Notice the swing in the tree for the children to use at recess.

On the right side of the wall, you will find a little cabin nestled in the woods on the side of the mountain..

TAH DAH, Part 4

Here are a few more details from the mural. Moving back through the main wall from the grist mill and to the left, you see a farm house and a barn.

On the hillside behind the farm you will find a herd of sheep grazing.

TAH DAH, Part 3

There are a lot of details in the mural that are not easy to see in the full photos. Here are some of the detailed pictures. One of the important aspects of Rufus Porter's murals was that he made an effort to keep perspective in his work. Hills and mountains that are further away from the viewer are more blue and lighter. Buildings that are further away are smaller and those that are closer are larger. The trees and bushes are sized to match the buildings one the plane in which they appear. The whole mural is framed by the foreground trees that are as tall as the wall and the foreground bushes that are nearly life size. If you look at the previous posts, hopefully you will be able to pick out the various planes in the landscape and notice how the foreground trees and bushes frame the entire work and help establish perspective.

Here is the Grist Mill. It is the building that is closest to the viewer in the mural. Notice the detail in the stones that make up the building wall and the swan in the mill pond.

As you move further back into the mural, you will find a small grove of trees and the farmer's dog is wandering by.