A Bucks County Farmhouse Monochrome

I was asked to paint an old farmhouse, dating to the 1800s, using an old photo provided, since the house, while still existing and lived in, is much changed and renovated over the years. My client asked for the painting to be in sepia tone, to give it that nostalgic feel.

I used the photo reference exactly since there was no other information about the structure, and the photo was fairly good – a farmhouse along a horizon, with distinctive trees, a few outbuildings (we think they are an outhouse and springhouse) and a field in the foreground, giving it the feeling of a hand-built home plopped in the middle of a vast rural America – which this most likely was at the time. I started with a pencil drawing.

I did a rough tonal sketch by painting over a scan of this sketch in grays, then made it sepia with a click of a computer key, and the client approved it –

I took one photo while I was working on painting it on illustration board with acrylic paint washes –

And finished and delivered it yesterday for the client to frame. The only real change I made from the original photo was to add two birds flying low on the horizon – I think it’s always nice to show some life and movement in a landscape.

Happy Mother’s Day

My Fiddling Mouse and PEI Farm on Etsy

I’ve added a few more cheery notecards to Etsy, both hand-illustrated items that you won’t find anywhere but in my Etsy store.

The card below is my dancing and fiddle-playing mouse, part of a series of music-themed illustrations I’ve drawn. The notecards are printed on sturdy glossy card stock and come 8 to a box, with 8 envelopes. If you’d like some to send or give to a musical friend, ordering info is here.

My second card is a watercolor I painted years back, after visiting our friends who owned a lovely farm in Prince Edward Island, Canada, the place where the classic children’s story Anne of Green Gables was set. The red roads and lush countryside of PEI is as real now as when Lucy Montgomery wrote the story in the early 1900s. My original artwork is in full color. This pack of 8 cards and envelopes has cardstock that is made from partially recycled paper and the cards are printed in the USA. Ordering info is here.

Thanks for checking out my original notecards, and while your on Etsy take a look at my other cards for business owners, Scouting and more!

A House in Ireland

My husband and I made a memorable visit to Ireland last August – we traveled around that beautiful country from Dublin to Kilkenny, Killarney and Galway, ending in County Roscommon, where my mother was born and lived until she came to the US as a child.

There, by the generosity and hospitality of some newly-met Irish friends, we were able to visit the place where my mother lived with her parents and four siblings. In the 1920s it was probably more a cottage than a house, but it has been lovingly cared for and renovated by a new family, and they were quite kind to us when we visited completely on the fly. I painted this watercolor of the home and sent it to our friends for a Christmas gift, and I just heard from them that it finally made it around the world (my tracking slip said it went first to NYC then to Japan, and from there to Europe). So now that the surprise is over, I’ll post it!

Wedding Prayer Watercolor

After seeing my illumination of the Lord’s Prayer a few months ago, an acquaintance commissioned me to illuminate a quote from scripture as a wedding gift for an engaged couple in their family. They asked for the traditional First Corinthians quote about love, and a floral border. The couple met at, and will be married in, the lovely St. James Episcopal Church in Collegeville, PA, so I thought I’d do a little painting of the church too.

I started with a pencil sketch. I told my clients right off the bat that I am not a calligrapher, but that I could set the type through my printer and print it on the art, which they were fine with. They found out that the bride likes the colors blue and red, so I planned on a red rose border with some forget-me-nots and one blue hydrangea at the top. They could not get any information on the specific flowers in the bride’s bouquet, or else I would have put in those particular flowers. As it turned out, the bride-to-be told me later that the hydrangea reminded her of Chestertown, MD, where she had lived, and so was a lovely memory.

I went onto a color sketch, done just with colored pencils.  I showed the sketch to my clients and they approved.

I thought I better practice the flowers in watercolor, since that’s how I planned to do the finish.  I practiced half of the design on some bristol paper, which was all I had around at the time.

Then I bought some 90 lb. Arches cold press watercolor paper – great paper for painting, but thin and flexible enough to easily go through my home printer. I cut the paper to size and printed the scripture quote onto the center; then carefully covered the type, so no water would get near it, transferred the drawing and painted the border and church. I bought a nice mat and frame, and the piece all came together for a meaningful keepsake for the couple.

 

 

 

 

 

A Painting a Day: Farm in Prince Edward Island

Day 3 of posting a Painting a Day: I painted this watercolor for friends who have a lovely farm in Crapaud, PEI, which we visited years ago. The roads really are red there, just like L.M. Montgomery wrote about in Anne of Green Gables.

Watercolor of a Farm in Prince Edward Island

Years ago I painted this scene of the Roberts Farm in the little town of Crapaud in PEI, Canada. We visited friends in this idyllic spot, the island setting of the wonderful children’s book series Anne of Green Gables, with our children and fell in love with the red clay roads and friendly people, and I remember marveling at the low clouds casting close shadows on the green hills. This scene is available as a notecard, if any are interested please email me thru my Contact page for details.

Peaceful zen pond watercolor

I painted this little study quickly for a client who had a lovely little pond in her backyard. I’ve never been into the ‘zen’ lifestyle, but the client was, very much so, and this little environment she designed was indeed charming and peaceful. I’m usually pretty tightly controlled with my illustration work, so it was nice to experiment with watercolors this way, using some quick strokes and then some slower, rounder organic blobs, letting the color bleed into accidental textures.

I’ll make it available as a notecard on my Store soon.

Detail of a Patriotic Hamster

Every year a local art supply store has an exhibit of little artworks – only 5″ x 7″ drawings, paintings, illustrations, etc.  Today I took a pencil sketch I had of a little hamster & started adding clothes to him, and it just got more and more patriotic on me, perhaps because we just had a beautiful 4th of July here in Pennsylvania.  For this illustration I used watercolor on illustration board, over the prisma pencil drawing – there is more to him, but I’ll wait to show the whole character after that show happens in a few weeks.