One new painting and our new flower box

I finished one  painting this week.  It is something new.  I did a trio of cats which I titled "Fancy Felines". Size on this one is 14X11.  I refinished the frame from white to a dark brown.

I am now ready to start painting the three hand saws that are commissioned by Countryside Creation.  Roger did the prep work for me.  The rust had to be sanded off and then a coat of rustproof primer applied.  He did that and now they are ready for me to paint.

The last home improvement project photos that I posted were of our powder room.  Since then Roger built a flower box around our front porch.  We planted it a few weeks ago.  Here are some photos of the completed project along with one of our new porch furniture and cushions.

If you have been following along with the saga of our remodeling projects which I have been posting since we made the move to MI you know that the construction of our new front porch was completed last October.  The weather turned cold soon after it was done so we didn't have much chance to enjoy sitting on the porch.  Now that it is summer we are finally are able to spend time relaxing there.  We still have to reseed the front yard as the grass got torn up during construction.  We may have to wait to do that because the weather has been too hot to plant the seeds.  Here is a photo of me on the porch swing.

I'm not sure what our next home project will be.  The basement and first floor are completed.  We have painted and decorated the two guest bedrooms.  Our bedroom paint is okay so I don't think we will do that.  We installed a new toilet and sliding glass shower doors in our master bath.  We are talking about putting down tile and doing a new longer vanity which will include a sit down area for me to use for applying makeup.  I had that in our Tucson home and loved it.  I prefer that over having two sinks.  I see no reason for each of us having our own sink because we never use the bathroom at the same time.  Other projects include painting our loft office and maybe removing the carpet and installing hardwood.  We have a large window at the top of the stairs that could use stained glass. Our upstairs guest bath could use painted and maybe a tile floor. There are a few more outside projects that we have talked about doing.  We are taking all of these things under consideration but have not made up our minds on what to do or when to do it.  Some of these things would be good winter projects.  I'll keep you updated once we decide what to do next.

I'm not sure who sees my blog but I know I get lots of hits so I hope you enjoy what you read.  I don't get many comments but that is okay.  For me, doing this blog is my way of documenting my art and a journal of our home improvement projects.  Every so often I go back to the beginning and scroll through all the posts.  Doing this brings back memories of when my art career took off and of the many shows I have done and painting I have sold and the people who bought them.  More recently I see the adventure of our move to Michigan and starting over in a new place with my art and the fun of remodeling our new home.

Thanks to those who read my blog and may God bless you in the way Roger and I feel we have been blessed by Him.

Two cow skulls, Mr. Hoots and stained glass cross panel

I finished the two cow skulls that were a commissioned job for Countryside Creations.  It was a fun project.  I am posting two photos of each skull.  One shows the whole skull and the other is a close-up of the painting.

I also did another version of "Mr. Hoots" at the request of the owner of Countryside Creations.

I did not realize she wanted this painting for herself.  I thought she wanted it for the shop so was surprised when she paid me for it when I delivered it.

Another thing she requested which was for the shop was for Roger to do a stained glass panel of his choice.  Previous to this he only did commissioned windows but she was able to talk him into doing some thing for her shop.  He decided to do a cross.  The size of the panel is 16 X 12.  I took this photo on our front porch and liked the reflection it cast so did not crop it out of the photo.

Today proved to be profitable because besides being paid for the owl painting and the cow skulls I also sold a painting at home.  This morning a neighbor couple came to the house to buy my "Magnolia" painting.  This has always been one of my favorite paintings so I was happy to see it stay in the neighborhood.

I am now working on a new painting of three cats which I will call "Fancy Felines".  When it is finished I will then paint one of the hand saws which is a commission for Countryside Creations.

A bunch of new paintings and a couple of stained glass projects.

This is my second blog post of the day.  I returned home from my trip to FL on May 15.  Since then I have been busy with lots of activities and have not had much time to paint but I still manged to get a few things done.  I also have some things I did before I left on the trip but did not post.  All of these are subject matter that I have done before and are good sellers.  I did new versions to replace the ones that have sold.

I got a number of boards like these at a yard sale and did these two for Countryside Creation. 

Next are two stained glass windows that I designed and that Roger made.  The first was for a friend of ours who was a truck driver.  He and his wife told us what they wanted which was a truck driving down a road toward the sunset with snow topped mountains and a river and trees.  This is what we came up with. Here is a photo of the window installed in their house.

This window was made of our son Mark and his wife Leslie for the house they just moved into in NC.  It had a small window on their porch which looked into their living room.  They wanted stained glass to give them some privacy.  Here is what we came up with.  This photo was taken before we sent it to them.

I started work on one of the cow skulls that I showed you at the end of my last post.  It should be done soon. I'll post photos as soon as it is done.

Countryside Creation...A new venue for my art

I'm going to do two blog posts today.  This one will feature Countryside Creation which is a shop at 15694 US-12, Union, MI.  Union is a small town about 20 miles from where I live.  The owner contacted me back in December after she saw my art at the Three Rivers Artist Guild Holiday Show and invited me to show my art in her shop.  She explained to me that she would be moving from the small place where she was presently located to a larger building in the spring.  The new shop had it's grand opening just a few weeks ago.  It is a very large shop featuring everything country and rustic.  If you live in this area I would suggest you check it out.  I am very impressed with what she has done with the building and am proud to have my art there.  It is set up in "rooms" with titles such as Bedroom, Kitchen, Man Cave, Kids Corner,  Garden, etc. There is also an area to sit and relax and have some popcorn and drinks. You can spend hours looking at the furniture and craft items.  Here are some photos that give you an idea of what you will see when you visit Countryside Creation.

My next projects are commissioned work from the owner of the shop.  She had these items she had collected hoping to find an artist who could paint them for the shop.  That artist is me!  These are going to be fun projects as you can see.

A blog post horror story!

Did you notice something different when you came to my blog site today?   Long story short....I decided to try to change my profile photo a few days ago since the one I had been using is at least 7 years old.  I had no problem doing it but was not completely happy with the new photo so yesterday I took another photo that I was going to swap out with the one I put up a few days ago.  I thought I followed the same steps but I guess I did something wrong because the photo disappeared and there was no way it would let me download the new photo.  I tried all kind of things and nothing worked.  The next thing I know is that I eliminated the saguaro painting that has been my logo.  Again it would not let me download another painting.  Then I tried something else and it changed the whole look of my blog.  By this time I was almost in tears.  In desperation I just started clicking on all kind of stuff and eventually I got my original layout back minus the header photos.  I decided to leave well enough alone.  I am doing this post just to make sure it all goes back to normal.  Here is the new profile photo that I was going to post at the beginning of the blog.  Since I have no idea of how to do that I'll post it here and from here on out there will be no header photos on this blog.  I will not take a chance of trying to do that again and loose my blog completely.

I have lots of new work to show you and also a new venue for my art that I was going to share but I will not do that until tomorrow.  My poor brain cannot take any more today and I have been on the computer for hours.  I thought my blog was gone forever, lost somewhere in the internet never-never land.  I can't take anymore today!  I'm going to go paint which will help calm me down.