Happy New Baby Gift!

 

This past spring, my niece and her husband were blessed with their first child... a sweet little guy named Tyson. They call him their "little crab"... so I thought it would be fun to paint a canvas with a cute crab and his name on it as a new baby gift for his nursery. An original design of mine, super simple, but I thought it came out pretty cute! I painted it on a 5x7 inch canvas panel... quite a bit bigger than my normal paintings, which are usually 4x6 inches or smaller. I don't usually do personalized pieces of art, but for family I thought I'd make an exception!

I hope Tyson and his mom and dad will see this painting each day and know how much they're loved!

 Welcome To The World Tyson!!... Aunt Patti loves you!

July Home Renovation Update

 

Well, last time I blogged (way back in February 2022), my husband and I were up to our eyeballs in plaster dust and paint as we did some remodeling on this old bungalow we call home. Six months later, we're still painting the downstairs, but we're a whole lot closer to the finish line on this project. It's all about sweat equity around here!... and "This Old House" is starting to look a whole lot prettier as a result of our efforts! The front porch is fixed and awaiting a fresh coat of my favorite color green (we're waiting for cooler weather before we work outside again). All the walls of the lower floor have been painted a warm white with crisp white trim (with the exception of our dining room, which is a pretty soft shade of green). The sun porch is bright white and we've just finished painting the porch floor an unexpected sunny shade of yellow. Next comes the butler's pantry which will be getting a fun pop of color too! It's amazing what paint can do to transform a tired looking house!... and it's encouraging to be able to see the good results from all our hard work!

I'm starting to paint some little canvases again to put in my Etsy shop, PholkartStudio! (YAY!!) The painting I posted above is called "Star Spangled Geraniums," and measures 3x3 inches. It comes with the cutest little easel to display just about anywhere! Honestly, it has felt really great to have the time to come up with some brand new sketches and finally play with my acrylic paints again! I've got four new designs that I'm excited about painting soon!... YAY for getting back to creating!

This Old House

 "Country Cottage"

It has been too many months since I updated my blog, or really done any art at all. The reason?... Ever since my husband retired, we've been sprucing up our little 1920's bungalow where we've lived for almost 35 years. "Delayed Maintenance" is what my husband calls it. Somehow in the middle of raising two boys here and working full time and living from month to month financially, things just never got done on "This Old House." The front porch was suffering from years of rain and snow that finally ate away at the floor boards. The plaster in my husband's office had developed major cracks that made an interesting spiderweb design on the walls. There were holes in the ceiling above our stairwell created by an old leaky roof. And every wall in the entire house was begging for a fresh coat of paint!

As I sit here typing, there's a BIG dumpster sitting out front and a porta-potty in the yard. We finally decided that some of the jobs that needed to be done were just beyond our handyman capabilities... and so we enlisted some help to get a few major projects finished around here. But Joe and I are doing most of the inside painting... which means the fun, arty painting I love to do has been set aside for a while. It's a good thing I really do like to paint, no matter what kind of painting it is!

While I'm away from my canvases and paint brushes for a short while, I'm still brainstorming ideas for new paintings and sketching in my sketchbook. New ideas are percolating and I can't wait to get back to more artful painting soon!