Peanut & Purls & Lisa Frank oil paints take 2

A couple of months back I started my Lisa Frank oil paint collage to hang somewhere in my new house. The first sticker to paint was the dolphin. I always loved that dolphin. Well since then I added a shark and some cats in a sneaker.

Peanut & Purls & Watercolors...& Beyonce

I first saw this phrase on a friend's instagram post. It was printed on a coffee mug. I decided right then and there that this was a mantra I needed in my life. I recently downloaded Beyonce's latest album, and like everyone else, I'm utterly bewitched by everything she does. So what did I do? I made myself this watercolor. Also, I needed a break from knitting. I just finished knitting all my (late) Christmas/birthday presents, so I need to think about what my next knitting project.

Made and Found: Lisa Frank Art

You know you love it. Every 80's and 90's kid loves Lisa Frank. I've been re-fallen in love with Lisa Frank over the last couple of months. It happened when I moved and with all the packing and unpacking, I decided to dig through my sticker collection (I have so many leftover collections from my childhood).

DIY: Fern watercolor

As you may remember from my post last week, Monika recently turned 30 (and boys can also be jerks). As part of sister Monika's present, I wanted to paint her a little outdoors that she could bring indoors. Cue the ferns!

DIY: Crayons + Watercolors = Prints

Inspired by the cool crystalline shapes of these rubber stamps by Extase, I decided to make a little geometric art this week. I know, I know. You're probably like, Great. More geometric stuff. Soooooo played out. Just like brushing your teeth. BUT the straight lines and clean graphic quality of geometric shapes lends itself handily to this sort of project. AND geometric shapes are fairly easy to handle, even for straight-line-a-phobes like me...

DIY: Rorschach Prints

I've been thinking a lot lately about the clean graphic quality of Rorschach prints. That's not weird, right? I know the inkblot test has largely fallen out of fashion in the psychiatric community, which is probably for the best since they do seem a tad pseudoscientific. But Rorschach's original prints are really quite beautiful nonetheless. And our tendency to assign meaning to patterns in an attempt to make sense of random shapes (an example of Pareidolia) is really pretty cool. Window to the brain!

Oh yes, I almost forgot. This window to the brain business can be rather terrifying when all the prints you create look like monsters or vaguely pelvic-shaped monsters. Uh-oh. If that's what I'm seeing, I clearly have issues best not discussed here. No worries, putting your neuroses on display couldn't be simpler...

Make: Black Beauty-ful Bookends

I love ceramics. I love to find them, and repaint them; it makes me so happy. So you can imagine the joy I felt when I happened upon these wonderful ceramic horse head bookends at a local thrift store.

But they weren't always the Black Beauty(s) that you see here...

darling deerface

Little Bear Giclee Print

I'd like you to meet Devon Smith, the artist behind the darling Deerface. (Psst...I added the darling because she is!) This is a brief sampling of her illustrative work. Pretty pretty, right? I love how all the girls look either really petulant or really suspicious. And isn't petulant an excellent word? Petulant. Pet-u-lant. Sorry. This is how I amuse myself.

Double or Nothing watercolor & ink

Wolf on the Wall.

First and foremost, let me apologize for the blue tint to these first couple pictures. I didn't realize Ben had changed the settings on the camera. Whoops. 

This is my Wolf on the Wall project. The name came about when Ben and I walked up the street to where all the food trucks hang out in Burbank. As we waited in line, we peered into the antique shop behind us and saw a picture of a wolf on the wall. For some reason that turned in to the thing to say, and this project was born...

I like you chairy much!

So this is a true story about a traveling chair. Well it's not super amazing, but kind of fun. About fourteen (?) years ago my boyfriend, Ben, lived in Burbank, CA. He was a young man living on a dime with his best buddy, and since their pocketbooks were slim they jumped at the opportunity to gain a chair off the side of the road. (Said chair is featured above.) Now, in Burbank it's a desert climate so this is okay. In the Pacific Northwest you really wouldn't want to pick anything plush up off the side of the road because it could contain a deadly strain of mold.

neon dream

Upon seeing Monika's terracotta pots, I became obsessed with the idea of getting my own terracotta pots and painting the rims gray with neon stripes. SO OBSESSED. Yes, an obsession worthy of all caps. What obsession isn't? Anyway, after finding several serviceable pots at an estate sale, I knew it was time to make the dream a reality...

MONSTRO!

Youngest sister Catherine does quite the oil paintings, as you probably already know if you follow the blog. Note the recent post Amateur oils. Luckily, I am her sister and get to benefit from these lovely oily gems.

This most recent Christmas she painted me a picture of one of my favorite scenes from Disneyland. Monstro, the monstrous sperm whale from Pinocchio! He opens his mouth up wide to swallow the charming little boats from the storybook ride. The trick is not to be scared because when you emerge from the darkness of his belly, you are in a magical world of miniatures, which I love!

"Pinocchioooooo..."

The Christmas prior to that she gave me this sweet little portrait of Miss Olive B!

"Oh Olive."

If you love pet paintings as much as we do you should definitely check out these other painting posts by Catherine!

You should probably paint your pets

Cats and corgis!

Whiskers on kittens!



Up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear...

Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I love hot air balloons! Even though in Mary Poppins no one sings about hot air ballons, they do sing about kites, and hot air balloons go to higher heights than kites--so I think it's fitting to invoke those movies. Also, does anyone else remember in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang when Grandpa Potts sets to the skies in his little house?

Merry Potter

I recently discovered this amazing $0.98 store down the street from my house. It's great! I have already purchased a gold sequin headband, miniature dinosaur skeletons, tape, glue sticks, and now these great terracotta pots!
The most amazing thing about this store is its legitimacy, these pots were actually $0.98 each.

While I love these pots, I wanted them to be more jovial--you know how some pots are more jovial than others.

I decided to just paint a little colored rim around the top to set it off.

Using a cream acrylic paint I put down a base coat so the colors would show up brighter.

I had to narrow my colors down because I only had five pots; I went with cream, peachy pink, red, blue, and yellow.

Olive watched my back when I was painting so no other dogs (Lucca) would run into my work area. Thanks, Olive.

These pots certainly do cheer me up when I see them. What lovely new homes for some of my growing succulents!

I always have plants waiting for more room.

I added some other smaller succulents to each pot to fancy them up a bit.

All-in-all, an inexpensive project and one that brightens my mornings.

Happy in their new homes.

The lesson here is don't be afraid of the dollar store, it often does have amazing things. Sometimes they are really only one dollar. If you do go there, see what type of miniature animal toys they have, you can always make your topiary a miniature menagerie.

Mr. Tumnus' wardrobe--revamped

I wish this was Mr. Tumnus' wardrobe. He was one of my favorite things about The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This fall I purchased a wardrobe at an estate sale. This wardrobe came from a crazy person's house on South Tacoma Way. It ended up being bolted to the wall and caused quite a few problems for the estate team to get it unhooked. Originally it was marked at $110, but I got it for $40. You know how I got it for $40? I said, "would you take $40?" Then they said, "yes." That's how bargains are made.

Christine was home for the weekend, so she had her truck and was able to help cart it off to Olympia. Nick wasn't too pleased at the site of it. I must admit, at first I hated it in the spare bedroom too...that was until I redid it! Boom!

Behold the before and after amazingness that is Mr. Tumnus' wardrobe!

It was white, wobbly, and had really ugly rose knobs.

The inside was gross looking, but it didn't smell!

That's the most important thing.

Rule number 1 of estate sales--always, always smell before you buy!

I bought some paint at Ace Hardware. I chose lucerne green in a semi-gloss. Total cost $11.

I had been on the lookout for some new knobs. I found the perfect knobs while visiting Monika in Burbank.

I picked up two at Anthropologie on clearance for $2.98 each.

Behold the transformation!

After the painting and new knobs, I really love the wardrobe.
I love it when I find unexpected things for amazing deals while estating!

*I get the "estating" isn't a word, but blogger suggested I change it to gestating which wouldn't be right either.

Amateur oils.

What's this...?

Good question.

Definitely an eye.

A possible signature.

Obvious sea creature.

Cuttlefish.

Christine loves cuttlefish, so I painted her one for Christmas. I didn't name it, but she probably should.

You should probably paint your pets.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to paint both of my tuxedo kitties together in a portrait. It's probably one of the best ideas I've ever had. I painted Nicholas' corgi for last year's St. Valentine's Day, and it seemed to be a hit, so I felt like the cats needed to be commemorated in an oil painting of their own.

I found an oil paints starter kit at JoAnns (best save those Sunday coupons) and used a rather small, square canvas. I think this was one 6x6 or so. 

I painted a background color first. The most important thing to remember about oil paints is that they take forever to dry. You need a good 3-day drying time before you can do more layering. I waited the 3 days and then sketched out Genevieve, starting with a pencil drawing of her basic shape. I used a photo I took last year as inspiration.

Inspiration.

This is what I had after maybe 30 minutes of painting.

After I finished Genevieve, I text messaged it to Nicholas and my sister to see if it actually resembled my cat. They both enthusiastically said, "YES!" So, I let this portion of Genevieve dry for a few days and went back to add in the extra white portions.

Next up was adding in the worst tuxedo cat in the Pacific Northwest--Peanut (Penelope).

I used the same method as before and sketched out her shape first.

I used a couple of photos as guides to her look.

Nice face shot.

The perfect body pose.

After about 20 minutes, this is what I had come up with.

The most challenging part was getting definition in the white parts of their fur. I still think this could have been done better because they aren't that gray in spots. They're brillant white all over. I was uninspired to do the blanket and the background, but I tried something and it seemed to work ok.

Also, take note that oil paints stain. I accidentally ruined one of Nicholas' hoodies while painting.

Whoops.

Stay tuned for more oil paintings!

Cats and corgis!

Dr. Boris (Nick's corgi).

Time to display the latest crafty things I've done recently (that seems to be the point of this blog anyway). For Valentine's Day, I painted Nick a picture of his dog ( Boris lives in Tucson).  We need to find the perfect place to display Boris.

Boris is less cartoony in real life...

Don't worry.  I made sure that Nick received candy too. It's his favorite!

I don't know which is cuter, the Triple H candy that I bought Nick or the kitten candy from Sees that Nick got me.

While Peanut is in the picture, it's worth noting that she has been particularly bad today.  Bink has taken quite a hit and there's Bink fur all over the place.  There's no rest when Kitts is on the prowl.  

Whiskers on kittens!

The kitten, "kitts," has been extra cuddly lately. I think she's just cold most of the time, but she needs to realize that heating money doesn't just grow on trees.  We cranked the thermostat to 60 last night.  I had just finished crafting a present for a friend when kitts decided to settle in.  

Here is the present:

I made cookies...this isn't the best picture.

I knit a slouchy cable beret.

And I painted this mini portrait of her dog, Charlie.

IRL Charlie is cuter. I've never met Charlie, but his pictures make him look like he's cute IRL.

Since the beginning of this post, kitts has decided to snuggle right up next to me and go to sleep. At least she gives off some heat with her little kitten body.

Now it's time to go to homework. Boring, snore.