Paint a Sunflower for Fall

Would you like a rustic sunflower hand painted by yourself to display this fall?

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Hand Painted Love signs with roses

Man has it been cold, cold.  It was a nippy 16 degrees this morning and the snow that fell day before yesterday stayed powdery and the pipes froze to my studio.   Boo.  But that does not stop me from painting.  I crank up the heat and paint on.  I had to haul a couple gallons of water in jugs to wash brushes but I managed.

(for a full tutorial on how I paint my signs click here "click")

I painted some loooove signs. 

My favorite is this one with the roses on the black lettering.



A detail shot.



And my husband picked the Sage Green Love sign with heart wreath. 



close up of wreath



I also had a special request of changing the egg color on my Nest painting.  I was happy to oblige for the customer.

Before:



After



She had no blue in her house and prefers a more neutral feel so requested the blue eggs be changed to light brown speckled.  No problem.

When not painting away I have been working again on my website.  It is slowly coming together but I find a few things I am having trouble adjusting.   There are some font sizes that need changing  but I am sure it is just a matter of time along with trial and error.

There is a blog feature in the website but I am not familiar with blogging in Wordpress, it may be time to learn.  It supposedly would help my rankings for the new website in the search engines so I shall have to learn it.   That shall be good for me. learning new things expands the brain cells or creates new ones, I need all the brain cells I can get.

I, for one, am ready for this extreme cold to go away.  I am dreaming of warm tropical weather, swaying palm trees, hot sunshine and cold ice tea.  But in lieu of that I have drug a steel rack of shelves into the living room to start my seeds for summer.  I will be sure to share. 

I wish you warm sunshine and soft breezes wherever you may be.

The New Year

I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth, it just seems like it.  I have been working long hours on the mountain cleaning vacation homes after everyone left from their holiday visit.  I came home every night too spent to do much more than eat my dinner, fix my lunch for the next day and make sure I had all my supplies ready to head back out the door the next morning.  Then I would take a hot bath and slide into bed, read a few emails, respond to orders placed on my website and do it all over again the next day.  I did package up a few signs for shipment during that time too.

It was cold.  But the sky was gorgeous, the snow covered trees stood out against the blue, blue sky.



It was a balmy 24 degrees as I fueled up and in the mere teens on the mountain. I was dressed for it but it was still cold.  We ride out to the houses on snow mobiles which can be kind of a hassle but fun too.



Because I have been so busy the set up of my greenhouse on the back deck has been delayed.  It is all put together but we still need to put down some plastic material to seal the floor then pave it with cement pavers and put up some clear plastic on the walls to help add some insulation. 

I had hoped to work on that today but I have fallen victim to the flu.  I have felt like trash for nearly a week but thought it mere fatigue but after a visit to the Dr today I was informed I was sick not just tired.  I have not had any other symptoms except a slight sore throat so that is why I did not realize I was more than tired.

Yesterday I did get to work on painting.  I am still adding to my new website

 and hope to have it ready for me to launch an extensive ad campaign to get it rolling.  Everything on it now is ready for purchase but I need more stock and I have some Personalized signs to add.

I definitely want to add more large art pieces,



More vintage farmhouse type signs



with a vintage fruit stand twist



and, of course, my stand by, covered in roses signs



I have had some comments from readers that were concerned I won’t continue my Learn to Paint series and I assure you I have more coming.  Next I had thought to do one on Sunflowers, then tulips and maybe some fruits and veggies.  Life just needs to settle a little then I can have some time to do that.  To do a quality tutorial (at least as good as I can get as I learn) it does take some time and concentration.

If you have not seen the series there is a tab in the navigation bar that will take you to what I have posted so far.

So now that I have updated you all somewhat I shall bid you adieu and take myself off to relax with a frivolous novel and hopefully with plenty of rest kick this flu bug. 

Until next time…

A New Garden Therapy Sign

I painted yesterday.  My studio was cozy warm so I enjoyed painting on a couple of custom ordered signs as the rain and snow pelted my flowers and trees.  This sign above will go on my website and was painted along side the other two.

A lovely lady ordered this for her soon to be greenhouse.  I just sent off the photos for her approval, I do hope she likes how it turned out.

 

She also ordered this sign. 



So a good day in the studio.  I have photos to share of our snow and what some of my garden looked like with its fresh white coating but that will be for another day.  Back to the studio for me.  More to paint. 

Enjoy this fine rainy day.  A bit chilly too.  Brrr, but we have a cozy fire blazing. 

Want to see more hand painted signs?  Just step on into my studio and take a gander.

How To Paint My Roses

As promised my basic step by step of how I paint my roses.  For the most part this is how I do it and not necessarily a teaching you to paint tutorial.

I have a new tutorial posted...CLICK HERE

 
And a new video...PAINT PRETTY PINK ROSES

These are the layers of strokes to build a rose, so we are assuming you know how to double load a brush and your basic comma strokes, u strokes, etc.

I start with basing in the basic circular shape in the size of rose I want. I am not particular on them being prefect, just a general circular shape.




This post has been moved to our new site...please follow the link below or click on photo above to continue this lesson...

How to Paint a Rose

A  NEW ROSE PAINTING VIDEO

Nest painting subway art

Just a quick check in.  I have been painting all hours trying to fulfill orders amongst other busy work.

This Nest painting I fit in while painting on the custom sign orders.  It has been floating around in my head for a bit now and decided it was time to paint it.



Some of my designs, once painted, end up on the scrap heap as the reality does not meet the image in my brain but this one has made the grade. 



The creamy streaked crackled background sets off both the wording and the nest.



I wanted the definition to look straight from the dictionary.

Now to add it to my website. 

A couple other signs that have kept me busy…

love the bright colors



painting the bluebird on this one was new for me, I rather enjoyed it.



You need to see it closer up, the upper photo does not do it justice.



And a custom name sign I did on Saturday.  Does it seem to be listing to the right….hmmm



Okay, I gotta run…see you soon!