My most recent paintings,"Mr. Hoots" and "Fun with Flowers"

I completed two new paintings in the last week.  The first is based on the doodles I do when I am killing time while traveling or in a waiting room.  I have a few notebooks full of these.  If you go through my older post you will see many of them.  They are a lot like the adult coloring books that are so popular now.  I decided to do the doodle type of painting on a 16X16 stretch canvas.  I painted the canvas black then drew a pattern of crazy flowers on tracing paper which I transferred to the canvas.  I didn't have a plan in mind on what colors to use other than I  knew I wanted it to be very colorful.  I lost track of how many colors I used but I achieved my goal of a colorful painting. I had fun painting it so titled it "Fun with Flowers.  Here it is.

I have been thinking of doing a painting of an owl for awhile so that was my next project.  Here is "Mr. Hoots".  He was another fun project.  I think he has lots of personality!  Painting size is 14X11.

For those who are interested in our home improvement projects, here is an update on the newest one.  This is a job that we are not doing ourselves but hired a contractor to do for us.  We are having a front porch built onto our house.  The job should be done in a few days.  We are very happy with the great job our contractor is doing.  He is very detail orientated.  Since we do so much work ourselves, it is nice to have someone who can give us the quality of work that we want.  I'll post photos when it is done.

I won't do much painting for the next few days because we have friends from Tucson arriving tomorrow for a visit.  They had a funeral to go to in Grand Rapids which is about 70 miles from us.  We invited them to come see us on the way home.  Looking forward to seeing them and catching up on what is going on in Tucson.

More home improvements and 2 new paintings

A lot of work was accomplished last week.  The new front porch and driveway concrete work was done.  Brian and Roger finished the shelves for the stairway to our art studios and got the ceiling installed and new lighting in Roger's glass shop.  I completed two new paintings.

This painting is titled "Equine Mystic".Size is 14X11. It a new version of a painting I did a number of times in Tucson and sold.  I did this one in a different color pallet.

 I have not decided if I will show it at the Vicksburg Gallery, LA's Coffee Cafe, or the Three Rivers Artist Guild Holiday Show.  I am changing out the art in the first two places and doing new paintings for the holiday show.  I am not sure which paintings I will put in which exhibition.

The next is a large painting size 47X24 that I did for myself.  I call it "Stormy Day".  It is hanging in my new stairway.  Even though this is a very large painting, in the photo it appears to be smaller than the one above.  You will get a better perspective in the home improvement photos.

If you have been following my blog you know that we have a basement in this house which we are using as our art studio.  Even though this house is only 8 years old the stairway to the basement was pretty crappy looking.

The first thing we did was to remove the door and door frame to give it an open concept look.  We put hardwood on the floors and the pop out wall straight ahead and tile on the landings.  We painted the walls.  I then designed the shelves and Brian and Roger built them.  I had fun decorating them with books and items that have special meaning to us and also some fun yard and thrift store finds. We no longer have the feeling of going to a basement but to a place where we spend much time creating art. Here is the finished entrance to our art studio and a closeup of the shelves.

The last photo is of the ceiling and new lighting in Roger's glass studio.

We still have more work to do to complete the project like trim work.  We still haven't decided on what to do with the floor.  They are unfinished concrete.  Roger keeps rubber mats on his side because he does most of his work standing and they are easy on the feet.  My side is splattered with paint spills from my messy work habit.  My suggestion is concrete paint but Roger would prefer something more finished looking like tile.  At this point we will keep the floors as is.  We have more home improvement projects that take priority so that decision will come later.

The contractor who is building the front porch has us on the schedule to start the end of this week.  I will post photos when it is done.

I am not sure who reads this blog but to whoever you are I hope you are enjoying our new adventure that we started with our move from Arizona to Michigan.  We loved our Arizona retirement life but there comes a time when life circumstances change and you realize you have to step out and do something different. Thus, our move to Michigan. We have been here a year and as we look back we realize this was the right thing to do.  I'm sorry to say that many of our friends from AZ have passed away or gone into assisted living or sold their house and moved closer to family like we did. " To everything there is a season..." Ec. 3:1

Another new painting for LA's Cafe and a preview of our latest home improvement projects.

When I finished the daffodil painting from the last post I decide to do a painting of the tree that I use as the logo on my Michigan business card.  When I painted it to use on my card I did a small canvas with a white background.  I keep that painting in my files (not a computer file) just in case my computer crashes in the future.  I realized I had never used the pattern in a painting to sell.  I thought it would be a good one to show at LA's Cafe along with the daffodil painting which I did to replace another painting I sold a few weeks ago.  We went to the cafe today to have lunch and drop off the two paintings.  Surprise, surprise!  I was handed $$$$ for another painting that had sold.  That was a very profitable lunch!   Here is a photo of "Flamboyant Foliage" my newest painting.

The biggest surprise was when I found out which painting had sold.  It was one of my desert scene paintings.  Roger had talked me into showing it at the cafe.  I didn't think Southwest themed paintings would sell here. He was right and I was wrong. I will take one of my cactus paintings the next time I go for lunch.  Here is the one that sold.  "Desert Oasis" is one of my Tucson award winning paintings.

It has been a busy week with all the home improvement projects. We have a contractor working on the front porch and Brian came to help build the shelving unit for my basement stairway.  Here are a few photos of the works in progress.

They poured the footer last week then came today and poured the pad for the porch.

It will have to dry for about a week before they can start construction on the porch.  In the mean time we will have to enter the house through the garage.

 The first photo is of Roger & Brian constructing the boxes which will make up the shelves and the second photo is of the boxes in place on the stairway wall.  They are anchoring them down as I am writing this.  All the trim work will be installed and the finished painting will be done in the next day or so.  Brian said they would have to dry for a couple of days before I can start decorating them with all the stuff I have collected.  I can't wait to get started.

Before he leaves, Brian will help Roger install the ceiling in his stained glass studio.  I am excited to see all these projects being worked on.  We are already thinking of our next project which will be a re-do of the downstairs powder room.  We are having such fun working on this house!!