"Sunflower Pattern XV" Needlepoint Canvas

Always love seeing our Paintings produced as Needlepoint Canvas, and what a treat when stitching is completed.  As exciting as the image is when freshly printed onto the highest quality Needlepoint  mesh, they truly become awesome when stitched and framed in a classic manner.  If interested in the purchase of a Needlepoint Canvas of Original Paintings please go to my eBay listings at http://stores.ebay.com/Stitch-Your-Own-Masterpiece/  and take a look at offerings there.  

Have Canvas from several Artist friends as well, including some wonderful images by Marcia Baldwin, Della Burgus, and DawgArt by Alicia VanNoy Call, among others. 
 

Ellie Sethman Kaleidoscope Paintings Make Wonderful Needlepoint . . .

Looky, looky, how could any stitcher resist . . .

Opening Ellie love to a whole new client here, and these ladies take their Needlepoint very seriously too!  Do you know they have Teaching Cruises for Needlepoint, where the ladies learn new stitches and stitch together on deck?  

New, new, new . . . Stitch Your Own Canvas . . . Needlepoint or Cross Stitch!

Needlepoint and Cross Stitch Patterns from Original Paintings . . .
Most of these Paintings will sell, or have already sold to Individual Collectors for very nice price tags! And needless to say, they are all bear copyrights by each artist as well. But we ave been busy turning many more Original pieces into not only Needlepoint Canvas, but Cross Stitch Patterns as well. Most of the Cross Stitch is available in pdf file form for easy transport to individual buyers. Take a look at how beautifully these pieces turn out!

To be specific:

http://shop.ebay.com/designsbyvera/m.html and http://www.etsy.com/shop/veraoriginals?ref=si_shop

Vera

OMG, OMG, OMG!! Seems like I've said that before!

I am now doing Needlepoint Canvas, and not just of my own Paintings any longer! Have started to incorporate some work by artist friends into my creative Needlepoint mix as well! Lots of work to get ready, and then to produce, but such fun!!!!  Anyway, if some of you have wondered what hole I happened to fall into, clear back from way last Thanksgiving, that of Needlepoint Canvas creating, producing, and selling is it.

To be specific:

http://shop.ebay.com/designsbyvera/m.html and http://www.etsy.com/shop/veraoriginals?ref=si_shop

--BRING MOTHER NATURE INDOORS!-

Our, "Oh no Charley Brown," Thanksgiving moment!

We had invited some foreign students from University campus to our home for "A Traditional American Dinner," right? 2 from China and 1 from Rwanda. These are not exchange students in usual sense, as they do not have a sponsoring American family already, so unless they have made some friends, are mostly alone on campus during a holiday. Well, we had already had our own family Thanksgiving dinner earlier in day, with table full of people for that one for sure, but plenty of food, as we had roasted 2 turkeys, and had all of the trimmings! Right? The only hitch was that we had already carved them both as well. Carved in the kitchen, and for expedience sake more than anything else!

Well, loan and behold, the first thing our lovely little Chinese girl said after she arrived was, "Oh wow, can't wait to see that Turkey! Have heard so much about them!"

You can just imagine our faces as we had to explain that the "Traditional American Turkey" had already been carved!

Saga Of The Red Chair Affair:

"The Red Chair Affair" 24"x36" Framed     
I first learned of The Red Chair Project when a local friend emailed to ask me how I mounted my Watercolors to Canvas. He told me he had one he was getting ready for this local project, to benefit the  Orpheum Theater downtown. "LIGHTING UP BROADWAY SINCE 1922" is their tab line. Anyway, I wanted to participate as well and began work on my "Red Chair Affair" 24x36 Watercolor, even while knowing it would be a close call to get painting finished in time. My good friends on FaceBook cheered me on at every step, which is literally what pushed me forward!

But when beginning the painting I simply jumped in, as I tend to do fairly often. Not much of a planner! Anyway, had just purchased a lovely group of Oriental Lilies earlier that day, so decided to start there. Then, knew I needed at least one red chair in the grouping, so added two, just to be safe!  

Was fairly well satisfied with this first draft, however, the first thing I noticed was that height of the square container was dwarfing main object of painting . . . namely, the red chair. In setting out to correct this problem at least one means of correction came to mind. Chair legs could be lengthened and run off bottom of painting, thereby giving front chair more height, which would have been fairly easy to accomplish. But I decided instead to add a table top to that particular surface, while cutting down proportions of container itself.

I felt like adding table top worked nicely for entire piece (which was painted with coffee, btw).

So far so good, now for a suitable background. Wanted to start dark, so of course black popped to mind! What else? So, maybe think about giving a slight oriental feeling to the area as well. Red, right, already begun in color format and needing to be carried into other parts of painting as well. So ok, red lines, red markings went in, made with red oil pastel crayons, that my black watercolor would leave in place without running off! 

But I did not want to be going too dark too quickly with my black, so only a first wash was applied.

Everything from there was mostly pulling facets of the painting together. I added an upright plate sitting behind lamp base in order to carry some key colors up from the rug, added a brown edging to black area to suggest edge of an Oriental Screen, deepened shading on scarf, lampshade, etc., and gave suggestion of crack in a stucco wall background.

After that was a matter of signing it, mounting onto hardboard, and selecting a frame.

"Last Blossoms Of Summer": 24" x 30"

Original Watercolor on 140 lb. Cold Press Arches Paper. Varnished and Mounted on 7/8" deep Stretcher Bars w/ Canvas, with black Floater-Frame .

This combinations makes a solid, stable Original Painting, which is protected against UV Fading & Moisture, making the painting itself stronger than either oil or acrylic. With this method of mounting, the beauty of Watercolor can more than compete with other media.


WITH BLACK FLOATER FRAME:

Part 2: Finished Painting--Lessons Learned The Hard Way

"Sunflower Morning"  12" x 36" Watercolor mounted on Gallery Wrapped Canvas.                                        

Finished...Notice how I camouflaged the area where the Butterfly had been removed. The difference here between saving a painting and needing to start totally over lies in being fast with ingenuity, and  the ability to camouflage. For a successful camouflage, placement within overall painting is key. Because this work is long and narrow, the placement was a natural for adding a spot of dense background into offending area. However, had it been that same size area, say, closer to the bottom, my problem would have been a great deal more complicated. 

Adding another Sunflower in the spot would have been out, as it most certainly was here! Why? Well because the bruised and firmly washed paper would not have taken paint in the same way, and with the same precision of placement already applied in Sunflower blossoms. Therefore something totally different  applied here was being called for...  Had offending area actually been lower, I probably would have place the  stone wall much lower in composition, and gone from there. 

This is both the value and the pitfalls of following your muse while Painting, rather than going through all of the steps of planning, sketching, using a layout, etc. as one approaches every new piece.

Part 1: Lessons Learned The Hard Way

Part 1:
Ok ladies and germs, as a used to was stand-up often said, I mounted my paper before painting this time. On a 12" x 36" gallery wrap no less! And yes, predictably, half way through the composition, I do not like the painting! Ok, again, because of an earlier 'experiment', which is detail in a previous blog, all is not lost, I can soak and remount with paper in order to start fresh. But, also predictable...IT WOULD HAVE BEEN SOOOOO MUCH EASIER IF I HAD NOT MOUNTED IT BEFORE I STARTED PAINTING!!!!!!

And that is my 'rant' for the day. Aren't you glad you were able to join me in this?

So, lesson learned here, paint before mounting onto gallery wrapped canvas, thus saving your valuable and limited time that is allotted for painting, money, and temper!

 

 Here is the painting in progress run-a-muck.  Have already washed out offending butterfly that just did not fit in. Am not really sure that I like where any of it is going, but will invest a little more time, and paint while longer before using Gesso over the whole painting and giving up!