Entries Tagged as 'Art'

The Art of Lisa Golightly

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21.5.13

As my style evolves and I’ve been changing up the style in our house on my wish list has been some art work to go with the new color scheme. Well last week I had a gift card to One Kings Lane and purchased a canvas print of the painting above called All Together by Lisa Golightly. I did a little searching on Lisa to find her other pieces and wasn’t disappointed. Come take a look…

Insanely beautiful right? I love the color palette and style to Lisa’s paintings. All images and prints of her paintings can be found in Lisa Golightly’s Etsy shop Kiki and Polly or you can visit Lisa’s blog here.

eBay Art

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17.12.12

It’s Monday, and I’m feeling cheerier than normal because it’s my first official day of my Christmas vacation. Given the extra time I have on my hands I’ve been thinking of changing up a few spaces around the house. One of the best ways to switch of the feel of the house is to change out the art work which can be an expensive proposition but it doesn’t have to be if you know where to look. When I’m looking for great art on a budget one of the first places I turn to is eBay. eBay is one of the best sources I’ve found for buying great original and inexpensive art that can really change your space. Even if I’m not in the market for anything in particular I tend to browse often to see what’s out there. If you look long and often enough you always can find something great.

I tend to browse around but I’ve been lately this has been my favorite search.
Art, Art from Dealers and Resellers, Paintings, 1900 – 1949, $0 – $200

I was on a browsing mission last night and came up with some great finds that are up for sale right now.

French Impressionist Oil Painting

1920’s Tree Landscape

Modern French Painting

20th Century American Impressionist Landscape

1940s Country Landscape

Venice Watercolor

Signed Watercolor

DIY Project: Rub n’ Buff Frame Update

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17.2.12

Happy Friday Everyone! Well I’m back with another super easy and cheap way to update plain white frames and get that expensive golden frame look. It cost all of $4.00. Yep that’s right $4.00. You want to know the secret? Or perhaps the not so secret weapon if you’ve heard of this stuff before. It’s a little miracle in a tube called Rub n’ Buff. I was a little skeptical to try this I thought all the hype was too good to be true.

But I bought these frames a while ago from AC Moore on sale back when I did my Flowers and Paisley Art Tutorials. All this time I’ve felt like something was lacking with the white frames and white mats.

They were pretty but I wanted something different. So I thought about it for a while and decided to take the plunge with some Rub n’ Buff. It was super simple and now I want to Rub n’ Buff all kinds of things. Rub n’ Buff comes in tons of colors but for this project I used Gold Leaf. It’s basically liquid gold leaf and goes on like a dream and so much simpler than actual gold leafing which requires adhesive and messy gold flakes everywhere.

via

All you do is lay your frame out onto a protected surface because this stuff will stick to everything it touches. You can use your finger or a rag, squeeze some Rub n’ Buff out and rub it all over the frame, let dry for about 10 minutes and buff to a shine. It’s SOOO Simple!

The finish is gorgeous! It turned the plain white frames it golden beauties.

I love how my Floral and Paisley paintings just pop out at you now.

The white matt against the gold frame really highlights all of the colors in the painting and the best part is if you want a step-by-step tutorial on how to DIY your own version of these paintings check out part 1 of the tutorial here.

DIY Project: Modern Line Portrait

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13.2.12

There’s only one thing I love more then a good art project…and that is an easy, fun, and personalized art project. Lately I’ve been admiring Picasso’s line drawings and silhouettes. There’s something about the brilliant simplicity of Picasso’s drawings that got me thinking (by the way the Camel and Penguin are my favorites). I remember doing silhouettes as a kid in school, we’d stood in front of a bright light and our Art Teacher traced out our shadow onto a piece of black construction paper and we’d cut it out. It was definitely one of the more fun projects I remember doing in class. So of course I thought it be fun to take mix some of both those concepts for this easy DIY Modern Line Portraits. It was such an easy project I’m tempted to keep trying this with so all kind of photos.

Materials

Printed Profile Picture
Vellum or Tracing Paper
Black Permanent Marker
Sheet of Colorful Scrapbook Paper

Instructions

Print out your chosen profile picture onto plain white paper. You won’t be keeping this image so don’t worry about what kind of paper you print it on.

Lay your tracing paper on top of the printed picture and begin tracing over the top of it. Starting with the outline first and working your way onto only select details like a few strands of hair, eyes, ears, etc.

Once your satisfied with your line drawing lay your tracing paper on top of a vibrant colored sheet of scrap book paper. The tracing paper will mute the color of the scrapbook paper and create a subtle background for your personalized modern line portrait.

Like I did you can choose to do a full bust portrait.

Or a smaller version focusing on the face and eyes only.

Personal, Simple and Sweet!

Whimsical Christmas Tree

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28.11.11

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend. We did. We got a lot done on our fireplace mantel project and it looks so great. I’ll promise to share all the details soon. I’m so happy that it will be ready just in time to hang our stockings by the chimney with care.

Now that Thanksgiving 2011 has officially come to a close we can officially begin Christmas decorating of course. And nothing says handmade projects to me more than Christmas time.

Growing up we always had special holiday art that my Mom had made, hers was a wonderful embroidered Santa Claus I always admired. Each year at Christmastime it was part of the holiday preparations that magically transformed our house into the familiar Christmas home we’d grown up loving.

I’m definitely no stranger to fun Christmas projects to bring in that Holiday cheer. I love to paint and this little whimsical tree was a fun afternoon project.

To paint this Whimsical Tree I used a 12 x 12 inch canvas I had in my art closet and painted the entire canvas, background and sides a light blue color.

Background

Next I transferred my Christmas Tree Sketch I drew (downloadable here) using carbon transfer paper.

Sketch

Once the background is dry to the touch I painted the body of the tree a light Christmas Green.

Christmas Tree Green

I painted the snow by using the eraser end of a pencil in cream, white and gray dipping the eraser in the paint and dotted in a random pattern. The Christmas lights are painted the same way using an eraser in dipped and dotted in purple, pink and yellow paint.

Christmas Tree Snow and Lights

Next, I painted the hot pink tree skirt and outline the tree in dark green and the tree skirt and star in black.

Christmas Tree Outline

Finally paint the package squares first in white which acts like primer over the darker background paint allowing the present colors to shine.

If you’re looking for a fun project to do with the kids this would be a fun and simple project. Just sketch yourself a tree or use my sketch and add some painted snow dots, Christmas lights and presents.

Christmas Tree Finished