Today that old depot sits above town as home to our flock and has become one of the most unique chicken coops we could have imagined. In the video below I’m sharing the full story of how we moved the building, converted part of it into a coop, built the chicken run and garden, and created what might be the most unique chicken house our chickens could ask for.

Here is a dalmatian painting with a red background. Prints for this painting can be found in my Etsy Store here. 

Dalmatian Painting by Ashley Hackshaw

This ia the pug painting  with a light aqua background. Prints for this painting can be found in my Etsy Store here.

And a Boston Terrier. Prints for this painting can be found in my Etsy Store here.

Let me know what you think and feel free to leave questions on the video if you have them! 

In this video I go through what I did step by step and what paint colors I used! Prints of Frida can be found in my Etsy shop here. 

 
MATERIALS MENTIONED/USED:
24×30 Canvas
Derwent Inktense Blocks
Catalyst Silicon Paint Wedge 1
Catalyst Silicon Paint Wedge 2
1500 Color Recipes
Crayola Chalk
Willow Charcoal
Master Clear Supreme Varnish

PAINT COLORS:
JoSonja Brilliant Green
Lukas Pthalo Green
Liquitex Gesso White
Lukas Lemon Yellow
Hookers Green
Golden Fluid Acrylic Sap Green
Golden Fluid Acrylic Yellow Ochre
Golden Heavy Body Fluorescent Pink
Golden Heavy Body Titanium White
Golden Fluid Acrylic Magenta
Golden Fluid Acrylic White
Golden Heavy Body Raw Sienna
Golden Heavy Body Cadmium Red Light
Golden Heavy Body Burnt Sienna
Liquitex Cerulean Blue
Golden Heavy Body Viridian Green

Please subscribe for future videos! Thanks so much for your support and watching my videos!

You can find the in my Etsy shop here!

I also have stickers and frameable artwork with the same saying on it “Beautiful Girl You Can Do Hard Things.”

Of course I had to paint my favorite Frida and I added a two quotes:

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.” – Frida Kahlo

I always loved Bob Ross growing up and so I had to pay homage to him. My kindergarten teacher was the first one I remember using the words “happy mistakes” and I know that came from Bob. There is a firefighter EMT that lives in town that I used to see walking to work with a Bob Ross lunch box and it made me smile every time I saw this grown man walking with a green happy tree lunchbox. 

“Ever make mistakes in life? Let’s make them birds. Yeah they’re birds now.” -Bob Ross

Johnny Cash and one of my favorite quotes from him:

“I love songs about horses, railroads, land, judgment day, family, hard times, whiskey courtship, marriages, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love and mother and God.” – Johnny Cash

And of course Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the notorious RBG:

“Whatever you choose to do, leave tracks. That means don’t do it just for yourself. You will want to leave the world a little better for you having lived.” -RBG

And one of my favorites: Snoop Dogg. This is one of my favorite quotes and it was part of a speech Snoop gave when he received his Walk of Fame star. Slay. 

One of my friends asked me to paint Post Malone with this quote and I love how he turned out:

“Now they always say congratulations, worked so hard, forgot how to vacation, they ain’t never had the dedication, people hatin’, say we changed and looked we made it. Yeah, we made it.” – Post Malone

I’m a huge fan of the music drag artist Flamy Grant and I love this quote:

“Yes: Do fight. And also: live your joyful life. There is a balance to be found in all things, and you are the balance to the hate, fear and oppression we see bubbling up around us. Your joy, your pursuit of happiness, is what the world needs. There is no argument that can stand against joy.” -Flamy Grant

It’s been 50 years since the appearance of Ziggy Stardust. Here is my version of David Bowie:

“Turn and face the strange,” – David Bowie

And last but not least, the Queen of everything: Dolly Parton. A woman came in my store recently and I over heard her say, “That’s the least looking Dolly I’ve ever seen.” I said, “But you knew it was her.” This is a young Dolly….from a photo of her in the 1960’s….she’s going through many stages of appearance and I love her in every stage. 

Okay back to painting…you can find all my prints here!

All original work can be found here and I’m adding new pieces every day.

The set features eight of the paintings I did in the series featuring eight different sayings I wanted to focus on last year:

The set is available here as well as many other new pieces! 

Not related but we also finished a large project with the Perkins Builder Brothers called the Plott House. It’s a one bedroom vacation rental in Bryson City. Check it out here!  

The design was a collaboration of ideas from my friend artist Stephanie Corfee and myself. This is the original sketch I sent her (you can click it to view larger):

The scene takes images from downtown Bryson City:

The Everett Hotel and the old Courthouse:

The old bank building, train depot and train:

I finally started keeping better track of paint colors I’ve used in projects too so I don’t have to guess on the next one or if I need to touch up a past project:

Here is a time-lapse of the mural:

I also painted the sign outside which was NOT as fun because I’m scared of heights.

Also the brick was textured and was brutal to paint!

I painted a few signs on the side of the building to show what is offered in the new store/bakery:

If I ever do something on this kind of brick again I think I would paint the sign white and then fill in the lettering instead of trying to back in to negative space:

The finished signs and the finished store:

The new store features shoes like Birkenstocks and tons of home decor and children and pet items:

The huge window here shows Bryson City Outdoors across the street and our food truck Big Laurel parked outside:

Another view of the mural. It’s 35 feet long and 6 feet tall:

Succulents getting some rain outside the store:

The store contains Sandra D’s Fried Pies Bakery and Coffee shop (Sandra is our partner Ben’s mother…and she is the best cook I know!):

The coffee menu:

A fried pie! My favorite is the strawberry cream cheese:

Here’s what the store looked like in January…I can’t believe how much they did in such a short amount of time:

The inside:

Sandra Ds & MRKT is on Facebook here if you want to check out more! 

Day 1: Green

Acrylic paint, paint pen, and collaged papers on wood panel. 

Day 2: Splatter

Acrylic paint and acrylic ink on canvas.

Day 3: Tulips

Acrylic paint and paint pen on wood panel.

Day 4: Music

Acrylic paint and collage on wood panel. I used old player piano scrolls for the collage underneath. 

Day 5: Blooming 

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 6: Petunia

Acrylic paint and texture medium on canvas. 

Day 7: Orange

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 8: Small

Acrylic paint and texture medium on canvas.

Day 9: Rose

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 10: Tabletop

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 11: Starts with S

Acrylic paint and texture medium on canvas.

Day 12: Rainbow

Acrylic paint, paint pen and wax crayon on canvas.

Day 13: Cat

Acrylic paint on wood panel. 

Day 14: Landscape

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 15: Edelwiess

Heavy body acrylic paint on and old shingle. (The shingle came from the Hazel House and is over 118 years old!)

Day 16: Purple

Acrylic paint and texture medium on canvas. 

Day 17: Huge

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 18: Happy

Acrylic paint and paint pen on canvas. 

Day 19: Opposites

Acrylic paint and paint pen on wood panel. 

Day 20: Wildflower

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 21: Water

Acrylic paint on canvas. 

Day 22: Stripes

Acrylic paint, paint pen, and Derwent Inktense crayons on wood panel. 

Day 23: Hydrangea

Acrylic on canvas. 

Day 24: Sunshine

Acrylic on canvas. 

Day 25: Turquoise

Acrylic paint and paint pen on wood panel. 

Day 26: Poppy

Acrylic paint and texture medium on canvas. 

Day 27: Abundant

Watercolor on watercolor board. 

Day 28: Garden

Acrylic on canvas. 

As few of the supplies I use on a regular basis:

Pintar Fine Tip Paint Pens – I love the tiny detailed point of these acrylic paint pens. 

Posca Paint Markers – Great acrylic markers for adding details and outlines. 

Liquitex Modeling Paste (Texture Medium) – Great for adding texture to any canvas or board. 

Canson Watercolor Artboards – I can never go back to regular watercolor paper. These boards never warp or buckle. 

I pulled the 8 phrases from a wonderful deck of cards I have from Katie Daisy:

The 8 phrases are: Create Beauty, Delight in Small Treasures, Welcome Change, Seek the Light, Stay Curious, Be Fierce Be Gentle, Speak Your Truth, and Stay Wild at Heart. 

My week 2 theme was BEARS. I love how all these look together:

They even gave me some inspiration for some larger bear paintings:

My week 3 theme brought back a favorite subject: CHICKENS. I might have to make these into some notecards:

And finally for week 4: MOODY TREES. These were all made by first collaging canvases with old player piano scrolls andI painted the trees on top:

Here are the canvases drying on my painting easel:

For February I started my artist friend Amanda Evanston’s month of floral prompts…this will be my fourth year participating. I’ll share them here soon but also feel free to follow along with her too and check out the #28februaryflowers and #28februaryflowers2022 hashtags on Instagram.

I have listed a few of the finished works on Etsy and I usually post a few a week when I can get my act together! Happy February!

It’s funny…I’ve never had so many people comment in my store on what I was painting as I did on this piece. Apparently there are a lot of Rip Wheeler fans in the world! Below is the painting time lapse:

These past few months have been so busy I feel like I only get a little of everything done that I want to. I have spent the majority of my time painting and started keeping track in September and I counted that I’ve painted 164 paintings, 209 ornaments and 182 additional pieces of art (block prints, magnets, shingles etc). That’s all I really want to do right now is paint and create…so it’s really hard to make myself sit down and write or upload. I’m taking a little time off from my store this January to try and organize my life a little. My first project is printing off family photos from 2021. (You can see my new method for managing family photo printing here!)

As you will see in the video I never start with a white canvas. This 30″x30″ gallery canvas has been prepped with a layer of green, black and turquoise mixed together to create a dark base. I use a photo as a reference and use a chalk grid so that I can work on different sections simultaneously. Here is the time-lapse:

This painting is already sold but I do plan on having a giclee print soon!

I started the painting with a quick New York City skyline sketch: 

Then I began painting an American flag over the skyline. My original plan was to completely paint over the whole thing because the real finished piece would be the time lapse, but several customers came into the store and commented how they liked it unfinished….with the towers still peeking through the flag. So that’s how I left it:

The finished painting:

There is so much art that has been created in order to process 9/11. There are more than 150 pieces in the 9/11 Memorial Collection if you want to take the all in. 

Another story that I knew very little about was that over 300 dogs took part in the search, rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero. There were veterinarians on site during the efforts because the dogs needed their noses and eyes cleaned often. You can read about our 4-legged heroes here.

I first sketched out the trees with black paint and then added the layers of light using short paint strokes. I recorded the Fall Landscape Painting Time Lapse below:

The Fall is the most beautiful season in the Smoky Mountains. Below are a few photos I took last year in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that I found in my “landscapes to paint” folder. Most of them are from Indian Creek where I like to run most mornings. This is a footbridge across Indian Creek:

Indian Creek where it meets up with Deep Creek:

Deep Creek way up Deep Creek Trail:

Also, if you like the time lapses I’d love for you to subscribe to my channel! 

I was painting from a photo of a floral arrangement I saw in a magazine (but I’ll have to post it later because I left it at the studio). The finished painting:

Here is the time-lapse:

Just a quick note about my iPad holder…I used my Arkon mount which came with an attachment that I just screwed straight to the wall. It makes it super easy to record time lapses. (Also, I am much quicker at posting time lapses to my Tiktok account if you happen to be on Tiktok!) 

Hope everyone is okay after the Hurricane. We have had a bunch of flooding here in the mountains but Bryson City has faired pretty well thank goodness. 

I am so in love with this little house. This is what it looked like over two years ago:

I will post some more photos later but my one of my favorite things about the house is the metal staircase that Jaime made to make it easier (and safer) to use the loft:

I made a video tour of the house to share for now:

Also, we are now booking the Hazel House for late summer and fall. All of the links to Airbnb and VRBO can be found here at Bryson City Farmhouses. 

I don’t know if you remember but the house used to be two stories with two tiny bedrooms on the top floor.  It’s now an open floorplan with a loft now:

The floors are locally harvested ash from a local lumber mill that went out of business a few years back called Powell Industries. 

Jaime had it custom milled in random widths and long lengths (much longer than standard flooring). It was installed like a traditional hardwood floor and face nailed with cut nails:

Jaime adding a clear coat:

In the photo above you can see how big some of the boards are on the walls. Most of the walls were random width spruce boards bought from our local hardware store and there are a few super wide quarter sawn red oak that were milled custom in Franklin. 

Jaime is all famous now with his Perkins Builder Brothers YouTube Channel so I’ll start dropping his videos here as well! Here’s a video from when the floors were started:

This is Katie:

I love her aging whiskers:

This is Mya:

I love her big droopy eyes and big droopy jowls:

And this is Charlie

What a little mop he is! He reminds me of our Cricket:

All three finishes portraits in one place:

I recorded a time lapse of the whole painting process here:

Here are some other portraits I painted in the last year:

Day 22: Abundant 

Day 23: Starts with an R 

For this painting I started with a textured surface created using Liquitex Modeling Paste Medium. The medium is applied liberally with a palette knife to cover the canvas and allowed to dry for about 24 hours before painting. 

Day 24: Pastel

Day 25: Frame

I used a second hand frame fore this piece and glued a wood panel surface into it before painting. 

Day 26: Pastel

Day 27: Park

Day 28: Garden

This painting is my own reproduction of Van Gogh’s “Garden at Arles.”

Below is the original version painted by Van Gogh in 1888. 

“This painting has a very decorative feel, and shows Van Gogh experimenting with the Pointillist theories of his friend Signac and of Seurat. He has used small, short brushstrokes, loaded with pure and brilliant colour in a very controlled manner.” –VincentVanGogh.org

Thanks so much for following along with this challenge. I hope some of you were inspired to make your own versions of each prompt!

I’m embedding the new ones below.  Sienna is helping me edit them so I might just be able to do this!

I painted this wolf yesterday and I’m still working on the filming set up but I think it turned out okay for a first video…I do end up stepping out the way more once I finish drawing and start painting:

This is one of my favorite paintings to date. Right after the inauguration someone came in the store and asked, “You haven’t painted the Bernie Meme yet?” The challenge was accepted immediately. (Sometimes I can sit for hours trying to narrow down what to paint.) He sat in my window for about a week before selling and it made a lot of people laugh!

I think I’ll try to start filming as much as possible…at least you will see what I’m working on since I’m not really doing much writing these days. I think I was born to paint! 

I probably won’t post all the videos here so if you would like to get updates on all the videos that are posted you can click through to YouTube here and subscribe.

Thanks as always for your support and encouragement! 

Day 15: Peony

Day 16: Millennial Pink

Day 17: Lettering

Day 18: Delicate

Day 19: Opposites

Day 20: Water

Day 21: Carnation 

For this one I collaged a canvas with vintage dictionary pages first. Then painted the Carnation can with the flowers:

A few are available on Etsy! 

Here are my Day 8 through 14 Paintings:

Day 8: Dripping

Day 9: Blooming

Day 10: Rainbow

Day 11: Violet

Day 12: Poppy (This one I added a texture before painting) 

Day 13: Happy

Day 14: Frame (This one I hand painted an old 8×10 frame to go around the canvas) 

Anyone else doing some floral art or projects this month?

Here are my Day 1 through 7 Paintings:

Day 1: Stripes

Day 2: Lilac

Day 3: Outside

Day 4: Orange

Day 5: Minimal

Day 6: Bird

Day 7: Turquoise

I think I like painting from a prompt each day. It makes me paint with at least one constraint but also gets me out of my comfort zone a little. I might have to fill a jar with a bunch of random words and subjects to pull from.