Painting It

Upcoming Events

2009-11-13T15:11:00.006-05:00

At the same time as completing the dishes project, I have also been gearing up for the usual pre-Holidays gift buying season...I will be participating in this 3 day long Junior League event. I will have pottery and pillows made from my handpainted fabric, and, by popular request, also some jewelry I make. http://www.jlsarasota.org/sarasota/index.jsp

Please spread the word, and try to stop by!

I really haven't had time to take a lot of pictures of the work you will be able to see next weekend here in Sarasota...but here is a little taste....

Much of this work will also be available at my ETSY store. There is a link to that on the left hand side of this blog. Check it out.

Later in December, I will also be at the wonderful Atomic Holiday bazaar, December 13th, Sunday, all day. But there is a special rock and roll evening Atomic After Dark event the night before, December 12th, that sounds like it will be a riot...http://www.atomicholidaybazaar.com/

Here is the facebook page for Atomic After Dark!: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/ical/event.php?eid=200291433335

Big Catch Up!

2009-11-13T14:12:00.010-05:00

Many days ago, the final pieces of this dish set were happily and finally fired and finally delivered...but I havent had time to update this blog....I am very busy making more pottery, and more on that LATER....Right now I want to show you the rest of these dishes!
The platters turned out fantastic...it's always nerve wracking firing large pieces, so much work goes into them, one dreads any flaw...but these are perfect.It was very fun to have such a relatively large area (the platters) to work on too...Here are some nice pictures of the dishes in their final home...and you can see here the kitchen island and matching floorcloth that I also had painted for the same people, some years ago. k

There are some close ups here of some of the dinner plates that werent fired yet in the last post...the onion turned out really good, as did the potatoes, the radish, the beet and some others....

There wasnt room to set it all up, for one big picture...

but here are some nice details anyhow.

Big Dinnerware Project!

2009-10-15T18:39:00.014-04:00

I have been very busy putting together this set of dishes for 12.So much planning goes into a project like this: simply selecting the dish types with the client is very important and takes tremendous concentration and some application of logic.

This particular client was very helpful and clear on what she wanted, so the process went smoothly, but it still took a lot of focus!

Another exciting aspect to this was project was the debut of a new kiln I am now using. It's really big, much bigger than my old friend the Old Kiln (sic),and it took a bit of formal wiring and engineering to get it powered correctly, and more testing from me to make sure it was all OK, before submitting this important dish project to it. Of course, getting the dishes planned and painted has also taken a certain amount of fore thought and mental organisation....I had to pay a lot of attention to keep track of what I was doing, each step, to keep the consistency in the design for each group.The cat is always particularly helpful at this time. (?)All the pieces are specifically designed to match in sets...Lots of variation between sets, but also clear repetition of the design within the set.

Each dinner plate, side plate and mug has its own particular fruit or vegetable.

The bowls are more generic, so they can work with sweet or savoury foods.

The bowls also sit prettily on the plates, for a nice table setting.

The backs of the plates reflect the vine theme on the bowls.

I think these oval "luncheon" plates are very cool.

Still yet to paint are two very large serving platters, one with fruit and one with veggies. And two large serving bowls, one with fruits, one with veggies!

Stay tuned.

Table Delivered!

2009-09-11T21:18:00.002-04:00

Here is the table in its home...and looking GREAT with the red chairs!

Table Finished

2009-09-08T21:09:00.006-04:00

A couple of days ago I finished this great table...

I am very happy with the way it's turned out, and the birds just crack me up....!
You can click on some of these pictures to see them larger!

The Roseatte Spoonbill and the flowering ginger plant are the last two elements to complete the circle, or Rougue's Gallery.

It's quite hard to photograph because of the reflections in the semi gloss finish.

Painted Table Moves Along Nicely

2009-09-01T09:47:00.003-04:00

This is the hard stage in a project, there is a lot to do yet, and I get conflicted about whether to work on the foliage and flowers, or to work on the pattern....I go back and forth, slowly developing the feel of the thing. As more paint develops the feeling of depth the painting starts to take on a life of its own. This is the fun part.

Lots more to do, but now that, for instance, the water area in the centre is resolved, I can have fun giving it a little more mystery and sense of atmosphere...compare this to the picture of it in the beginning of this post.

The flowers are blocked in with colour, also bringing more razzle dazzle to the scene...

Painted Table

2009-09-01T09:31:00.003-04:00

Next Project is a small dining table. Here is the sketch on paper... Birds, water, tropical, stylised....all good fun.

I taped under the edges, and the centre area, especially. I don't want thick areas of paint gluing it together, or preventing me from getting the table closed later!

It was important to get the birds in the right places, and for them to be the right size, so I decided right away where to put them...maybe a little too soon...

I painted them out, to do more background work; go figure....however, since I still wanted to make sure they were positioned correctly, and that there was enough room for the clumps of flowers to come later, I then went ahead and painted in the birds just about the way I want them, but didn't finish them. They will get all messed up anyhow, as I do the leaves and flowers around and behind them. However, they'll be easy to fix andperfect later, last thing.

With this project, there are lots of layers. I have to decide what gets painted first. If I dont take the time to think ahead, I will end up repainting a lot of areas, as they get stepped on by the adjoining bits that should have been painted first....

Fabric Washed

2009-09-01T09:09:00.003-04:00

After heat setting the fabric in the very hot dryer for half an hour or so, its time to wash it. Washing is not that crucial. I sometimes feel the fabric seems softer, but I think its more imagination. However in this case, since I used a lot of chalk to draw with, the washing will certainly get rid of any chalk residue in the fabric.It was very heavy all wet! And when the fabric is wet, it becomes delicate. The paint can soften after a while when wet, and its VERY IMPORTANT not to scrape, twist or otherwise disturb the paint on the surface of the fabric when its wet. When its dry its almost indestructible, and holds up to pretty rough use. Crazy. It was a cloudy stormy looking day. I was eager to get the fabric finished off and delivered the next day, the day before it had rained a lot....argh. What to do?? Nothing dries when its rainy in the summer here....and this piece was too big to try to dry indoors...I watched the weather radar on the computer for a couple of hours, and there was no rain anywhere...
I was a nervous wreck when the fabric was almost dry, and it still looked like the sky would rain a downpour....

I laid it on the picnic table when it was just damp,and the sun came out for a while and really toasted it nicely!

A minute later, I looked out the window and it was raining! With the sun out! Argh! I rushed out and got the fabric inside , before any of the rain had a chance to stick.

Hopefully I will be able to post some pictures in the future of this piece made up into the lightweight quilt that's planned for it.

More On The Fabric Bedcover

2009-08-19T20:16:00.006-04:00

Here is a good view of what's been done, and whats left to do! The piece is oriented sideways on the table. The unpainted area corresponds to the "top" of the cover, ie: at the headboard. The seam is in the centre of the table now, from side to side. Not that it matters particularly...Here is the chalk drawing for this next section.
And here you can see that section more or less completed...

Its really an incredible amount of detail, even for me. I don't think I have ever concentrated so much tiny detail on such a large piece. It think its beautiful.

To unify the whole, and to give it an ''inky'' look, I am painting a transparent "glaze"- like wash over the whole area outside the centre , in a sort of indigo/purple colour. It cools off the flowers and leaves, making them look moist and shady, like the forest floor...I will do some more of that today; it often dries lighter, and allows me to create even more layering, by it needing more than it looks like when its wet In other words, the stages are slow. It's hard to overdo it in one glaze. That's a good thing, for me!

I will be sort of sad when this is done. Its been hard work, mentally, since there had to be a lot of consistency in the flowers and scale. I had to pay quite a bit of attention, and that's fine, but it's demanding, and physically tiring, having to huddle over a small space for a long time!!...But the main point is I am so happy with the way it looks, I will miss that satisfying feeling when a whole section comes together, and looks really good... but I suppose I feel like that all the time when something is getting done and looks good. ...

Soon I will be thinking this about the next project. Still a few things to do on this one though... stay tuned.

Painted Fabric Bed Quilt Project Continues...

2009-08-06T13:51:00.006-04:00

It was important to maintain the impact of the central floral which will pretty much fill up the centre of the top of the bed...the sides will be the Mille Fleurs areas.

I have more or less completed the right hand middle part, and to keep the momentum going, I am going to slide the fabric up and begin the whole bottom section. Later I will go back and complete the left hand middle bit, and probably do some more little tiny details on the right hand side. Then I will draw and paint the top section last. Just worked out that way, no reason.

As before, I block in the dark areas, and then begin blocking in larger areas of colour, gradually adding more and more detail on top.

Lots of work! LOTS of detail. But once the theme, colours and repeating elements are established (the analytical part!), its a very meditative satisfying process...its going well, and its fun.

Exciting New Fabric Project

2009-08-06T12:50:00.011-04:00

I have been planning this large fabric bed cover project with a client for months now. Finally its time on the work calender has arrived.The project is for a hand painted one-off piece with a central, radiating design, to cover a Queen sized bed, with a 2 foot drop on 3 sides. The fabric will subsequently be machine quilted with a star pattern, and lined to fashion a lightweight bedspread for a large, beautiful four posted bed. The starting points for the design is a rug from the same room, and floral designs from embroidered silk shawls from southern Spain. A LOT of planning has gone into this, since its so large, (approx. 8'x9') and needs to end up a very specific size.

Usually I staple my fabric down before painting, shrinkage does occur, and I like to work on a tight, flat, non- moving surface. But I can't do that here.

With extra allowance for whatever shrinkage will occur (usually 1-2 inches, depending which way the weave is), I boldly set out putting a lot of colour on the fabric, every which way I can. I want there to be a lot going on in the background of the design: a lot of depth. Since I don't know exactly where the dense floral areas will be, nor where the more open areas will be between flowers, I have to cover the whole thing with this mottled effect that will look like distant foliage and blurry leaves once the rest of the work is painted in. There isn't going to be the usual "designy" motifs I often put in the background of my fabric yardage (swirls, big dots, geometric grid designs of squares and diamonds, etc).

Its such a big piece, but I know from experience that finding the centre, and doing a lot of measuring and thinking at this stage pays off later, and it will probably all turn out OK. The border makes the measuring and planing final. In fact, I did this border twice, in chalk, since I decided to make the whole design bigger, and then we decided to add a third row of checks. The edge row of checks will be turned under after , and on top of the quilting process, to finish the whole thing on the underside.
Drawing with chalk is crucial, I simply wipe out mistakes with a wet sponge. Normally when I paint fabric yardage projects I either don't draw at all, except for marking out pillow squares, or I do a very vague block out of some feature (bird or something)..and just start painting. In this case, however, the design is very formal, and the dimensions,pattern and size of various elements is very important. So I am planning on drawing just about everything in the chalk first. I wipe it out as I go, and any little bits left over, come out in the wash.(!)

After a very intense chalk session, lots of measuring and wiping out, and thinking hard, I feel confident to draw out the outline in a dark paint. This dark outline becomes the shadow under the plants later.

Although I have followed the pattern fro the rug pretty faithfully, I am certainly going to make it my own, and also , since its not a wool tufted thing, but a painted thing, I can introduce a whole lot more interesting detail. Making the transition from the centre floral to the field of flowers goes through a couple of versions, and we finally smooth out the kinks in the design, and work out the details for the rest of the piece. We are looking for a an over-all sense of pattern, but not a slavish symmetrical mirror pattern from one side to the other. It also will develop an early Renaissance Mille Fleurs tapestry look.

Three Fish plates

2009-07-17T16:33:00.007-04:00

Last in the line of the latest batch of pottery are these really good fish plates.

I love their faces....

I broke this one.

Just, oops, it slid to the floor, and blammo. A million pieces.

It was entirely my own fault. I balanced it for a moment in a precarious (stupid) spot...it fell , seemingly in slow motion, while I stood helplessly watching. Some quick reflex type person probably could have caught it, but I am not that person. I have other talents, suppose.... Time to take a "break" (hahahaha!) from ceramics.

I think I will work on fabric for a while.....check back soon!

Ceramic Fish Bowls

2009-07-17T16:17:00.004-04:00

This was a very fun project, a lot of detail, too, but I am very pleased with the results...

These are going to be used for soup.

Blue is particularly hard to work with, in pottery painting. All the blues look infuriatingly the same, before firing. And they all look light and grey. So its very hard to visualize what the end result will be. You take it on trust. And keep painting.

And the blues here turned out just as planned. I wanted deep bright blues inside, and that's what I got, with good definition in the orchids and leaves. I also managed to get a sense of a lot of depth and a watery quality in the painting; I am very pleased .

Painted Chair backs

2009-07-17T16:13:00.002-04:00

This was a quick project to paint a simple design on the silk backs of these rather nice chairs. This kind of work requires a lot of focus and concentration, since I cannot make a single mistake.

No drips, no re-dos, no practice.

And they turned out just fine!

Final Installment Of Native Plants Plates

2009-07-17T15:42:00.008-04:00

Finally, here all the Florida Native Plants Plates pictured together in a group!

They have been done for a couple of weeks, and I did photograph them all together right away, but I showed them on black velvet, and it just didn't work out well...The colours looked 'off', and the black was too much...I don't think the camera could handle the black AND the very, very bright colours, especially the reds, in one operation!

Well, they are all great, I am very happy with them, and they look great all together.

The backs on the big plates are red. The backs on the smaller plates are green.

The reds are VERY bright and exciting, with wonderfully contrasting blues and greens in the pattern.

Great Newspaper Article

2009-07-04T14:27:00.006-04:00

I was in the paper last week!
Check it out: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090627/ARTICLE/906269951##

Read the article from the source, or from the copies here.

Click on these photos to see large enough to read.

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090627/ARTICLE/906269951##

Back Again!

2009-07-04T13:37:00.006-04:00

After a lovely combination of three week vacation and major kiln repair, I am finally able to post some new work! After a major overhaul of wiring, and 2 element replacements, I made a test batch of tiles and a big bowl, to see if things were back to normal.

A happy sight indeed!

Not only that, the kiln seems to be getting it all done about a half hour early.

Great efficiency. Thank you, kiln.

Now that I can depend on proper firing, I can re fire the plates I had to re do after a horrible amount of breakage, just before I went off on holiday. (See previous post).

I cant say I minded running away from disaster.

So today, I am happy to report very spiffy looking plates, and as is often the case, the re dos are even better than the originals.

I now know to never, never fire during very damp conditions, like rain storms....that is in fact what probably broke all the plates in that fateful load. It was raining cats and dogs that night. If the temperature in the kiln was also inconsistent, before the repairs, then that surely didn't help either.

This week we had a lot of rain too, and I waited until an entirely rain free day, firing in the afternoon, just to make sure.

I waited to re fire this lovely pitcher that was under fired in one of the firings before the repair...thank goodness it didn't fit in that final load.

I have 5 more plate re dos to fire yet, and a few new pieces, including some soup bowls that will have fish and orchids on them...I feel so relieved to have the kiln working. I was all traumatised by that broken stuff, and was afraid to fire the re dos! Now I can relax , I think.

More Pottery- Florida Native Plants

2009-05-19T23:05:00.011-04:00

I have a commission to do a set of plates depicting Florida Native Plants, and ones that are found easily in our area, SW Florida...The rims and backs will feature my typical borders and patterns: .. ..the centres will feature 1 or 2 native plants in a natural setting, sort of botanical, with a Florida landscape depicted in the background. Charming!
This is a Loblolly Bay:

The larger plates are quite big 11.25" and the smaller ones are 8'' or 10" I think, which nestles nicely inside the larger, and the 2 rims complement each other.

Bomba is SO helpful.

This is a fun project, and the plates are turning out really well.
You can click on some of these images to larger!

Wild Sunflower

Railroad Vine and Beach Morning Glory (unfired):

Horse Tail:

Lizard's Tail and East Palatka Holly.

This is Coral Honeysuckle:

The Beauty Berry plate turned out particularly well...here un fired

And here, fired.

Sadly, in the firing, there has been some breakage... I am extremely upset and don't want to talk about it.
However, that's pottery! Firing is a crazy thing, and I have always been very fortunate, and consistent with my results...

and I don't get much breakage.... maybe I will learn something from this event....in the meantime, I take a deep breath, maybe several, and prepare to re-do a few of these beautiful plates, and in the end, look forward to it, since they are most agreeable to work on. It's not really the end of the world, like I thought it was at first.

Pottery update!

2009-05-19T22:50:00.003-04:00

Its been a very busy couple of weeks....I have been too busy MAKING to take time to WRITE.. and more importantly, to PHOTOGRAPH. These are very quick and casual photos... I haven't had time to slow down and set up a nice photo for this pottery... I will later! I always regret later, not taking to time to document the work as it gets done. But it is tedious.

In these photos you can see a mixture of projects from these fresh water fish vases (the one with the handle formed into a hole is very exciting... a perfect set up for water and fishes... think SURF!

And here are just 3 of the pretty pastel and bright bowls made to add to an existing collection... I have painted many of these this fortnight!. Check back soon for more pictures of them!

And here are the teapots, and the butter dishes in the same style and colours... the butter dishes were painted to match pretty much exactly the existing one, as shown in the previous post... well, I think I managed that quite well.

Pottery Projects Finally Get Going

2009-05-06T23:25:00.006-04:00

As I mentioned some months ago, I have a large variety of pottery projects planned since December. Finally I am able to get around to them!

I have been looking forward to this work. I love painting the pottery, mainly because its so exciting to fire and see what comes out, hopefully something planned for.

This bowl is one of several to match the bowl in the photos, painted by me some time ago for a client.
The teapot is a variation on a previous teapot, (you can search 'teapot' in this blog and maybe find the one I mean)
The butter dish is being painted to exactly match the one shown in the foreground.

These are little tapas/snack plates for a set of 12.

They will have a bright green background when fired.

The faithful Bomba is always there to help me with my pottery.

........................................

Well, no he's not. This is his table most of the time, when I am busy in the other studio, he gets the whole place to himself. I have to negotiate the space with him now. He looks resigned to it. I am too.

Painted Planters

2009-04-23T13:27:00.012-04:00

Here is an interesting project :paint up these terracotta planter pots to give them a little pizazz. I used paint for painting cement, which should offer some extra adhering qualities.I also used some cool metalic in the recessed areas of the pots, to add to the sense that these are now objects of great antiquity, made of fantastic enamels, glazes and precious metals(!) You can see many of these pictures larger by clicking on them.

It was a lot of fun working with the bas-relief areas, layering a lot of paint, and making it look like mineral build-up, and drips.

These pots will be outside, most of them under cover, on patios, but even the ones out in the weather should hold up fairly well...and as they endure the elements, further weathering will probably only make them look more interesting.

I was particularly pleased with this sideways leaning pot. It was more of a challenge, since it didn't have any raised areas, so I had to do much more to make it interesting. And it now has a lot of character.

Some of the pots had cement screed dropped on them, from construction on the site where they where kept before I got them to paint. I was able to knock some of it off, but the cement that would not knock off, I painted brilliant gold, and then "aged" it, so that it looks like real gold was carelessly dropped on them.

Artwork On Paper To Complement Table

2009-04-11T14:29:00.007-04:00

I was commissioned to also produce a set of three artworks for framing for a wall in the same room the game table will go. I didn't want them to match exactly, but to be be more colourful and fanciful than the table. They will work as a progression of three ideas, tryptich style.

Many of the elements from the table are included, such as the black and white checks, and the cheerful fish...

Working on paper seems to inspire a looser more florid style... or maybe it was just me.

I wanted a different feel from the table, as mentioned...Also wall colour form other rooms, and a colourful cotton print covered sofa will be complemented by the three paintings.

I finished the edges with gold, after I removed the tape from stretching the paper. The paintings will be floated on the mat, for framing.

I hope to have pictures of the whole room, decorated and pictures hung, to show the whole effect. its very difficult to show these paintings out of that context. Check back later in the summer!!!

Painted Game Table

2009-03-28T21:51:00.011-04:00

Here is the sketch: I actually ended up making the squares 2 1/2 " square. Better proportion

This table will be in an area designated for kids to play in, but still part of the main part of the house, so I didnt want it to be to "Childrens Furniture" in style.

The only colour in the room at the moment is the fabric on a couch, and thats where the colours for this table have been drawn from.

Here is some nice detail developing...

I used a very thin coat of gold , almost just a ''dusting'' of gold, to liven up the dark squares. It also unifies the whole, since the fish have reflective and interference colours on them.

Here is the table completed. Varnished.
I love using interference and metalic glazes on fish, to make them sparkle and look iridescent.

Adventure Pets Strike Again!

2009-03-24T20:30:00.005-04:00

Here they are again, that intrepid duo, no extreme pet sport too daunting for them...

Of course it's the CAT who notices they are flying too low.

Or is he just getting carried away trying to chase the string?The dog is having a blast, unconcerned. Either way, its a wild ride.

You can click on some of these pictures to see them larger.

I can hardly wait to see these made into pillows...what fun its been painting

them.

Dog & Cat Adventure Pillows

2009-03-23T00:24:00.017-04:00

Who says dogs and cats don't get along?

I hope nobody is going to tell me the technical reasons why the dog's equipment is never going to work..I know! But short of putting her in a diving bell, I decided to go with the wishful thinking model. (!)

Here are the VERY LOOSE pencil sketches for the two pillows....hilarious, and there were many other really cute ones, maybe someday they will make it out of the sketchbook and onto pillows too....Here is the next one, Hot air Ballooning. Further below you can see it on fabric just barely blocked in today....

Below is the chalk drawing work that I do before painting. Obviously I had to do a lot of figuring out on this one...I made them standing, since the floating legs didn't fit into the square format...

I had fun depicting them standing on each other's fins, which, if you have ever done any scuba diving with task management like loading lobsters into a bag, you know this is exactly what happens as you try to keep your balance, and work with your buddy, while you both try not to float all over the place.
Here are the backs:

The pillows are for a very special room that serves as guest room to 2 little granddaughters of the people who commissioned these pillows. In a subsequent post, I will show some of the painted furniture in the room that i did some years ago. these pillows should fit right in...and obviously the dog and the cat are modeled after real pets in the household. You can see Kona, the dog here:P.S. - Pillows Delivered sitting on my pillows back in June 2008. And The cat is shown here, on tile: Cat Portrait Tiles

Here is the Hot Air Ballooning one, just barely started, ...you will see it completed in the next post, in a few days!! In the meantime, don't try this on your pets! Unless they could maybe really bring you back an extra lobster.