| In an age when the walls inside our houses are decorated, it made sense to me to design paintings with the garden in mind. Why not honour the beauty and the bounty provided for us by the gardens and other sacred spaces. The Pennsylvania Dutch who painted good luck symbols on their barns became my main source of inspiration. |  |
I loved the simplicity of design of the Hummingbird which I named, “Ode to Joy.” It lent itself to being readily identifiable at a distance in a garden. In the picture, you can see the evolution from 1998 to the present version. When I began painting Spirit Catchers, they were all on a white back ground and had little depth or colour to them. The white one depicted here, is the only one that ever came back to me because it didn’t stand up well. It turned out to be a popular design.
After the first successful summer of sales, we settled on basic sizes which would cut out of a standard 4X8 sheet of the tempered masonite I was using for my canvas. First Tom cut squares, stacked and tacked a number together, then cut them into circles on the band saw. Next he sanded the edges, drilled the mounting holes and treated the boards to be weather proof. Those boards were handled at least 8 or 9 times before I even laid eyes on them.
Once I was in possession of the boards, they had to primed and a base coat applied to both sides. In the early days, the paints were of such consistency that I was able to get away with two colour coats before sealing the painting. Each time the paints were “improved” to have less VOC’s I had to start all over at ground zero and learn how to work with them.
I tease Tom because no one knows, he is really the one who gets “paid” for the work he puts into making the boards. I just get to fulfil my passion and make them come alive. They have grown and evolved along with me as I learned and adapted to new ideas, techniques and insights. I feel so blessed to have been on this journey of 1600 paintings!
We are all adapting to a new way of being every day of our lives. In this respect, the painting have been excellent
After the first successful summer of sales, we settled on basic sizes which would cut out of a standard 4X8 sheet of the tempered masonite I was using for my canvas. First Tom cut squares, stacked and tacked a number together, then cut them into circles on the band saw. Next he sanded the edges, drilled the mounting holes and treated the boards to be weather proof. Those boards were handled at least 8 or 9 times before I even laid eyes on them.
Once I was in possession of the boards, they had to primed and a base coat applied to both sides. In the early days, the paints were of such consistency that I was able to get away with two colour coats before sealing the painting. Each time the paints were “improved” to have less VOC’s I had to start all over at ground zero and learn how to work with them.
I tease Tom because no one knows, he is really the one who gets “paid” for the work he puts into making the boards. I just get to fulfil my passion and make them come alive. They have grown and evolved along with me as I learned and adapted to new ideas, techniques and insights. I feel so blessed to have been on this journey of 1600 paintings!
We are all adapting to a new way of being every day of our lives. In this respect, the painting have been excellent
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