Where Bloggers Create Blog Party

Welcome to Where Bloggers Create Blog Party 2013.  I am so happy that you stopped by.  My garden gate is open for you to come in and sit and relax while I share with you my creative spaces.  I am a flower painter living in Southern California and my garden is the inspiration for most of my art and my blog.  I call myself a Decorative Impressionist and my colorful garden is reflected in my art.

Let's join Bentley, my Studio Assistant, to take a little tour of the creative spaces where I paint in my garden before we go inside to my studio space where I also create. 

Bentley and Blossom, my Scare Crone, watch over the Garden and Studio.

Flowers, chairs and vintage garden objects in my garden are inspirations that  end up in my paintings.

The blue Bistro chair and flowers inspired this painting.

I like to group plants together along with my vintage garden treasurers in a vignette to paint the Garden Shop paintings.

My potting shed sign , vintage items, flowers and and Bistro chairs are the inspirations for the Potting Shed Paintings.

This is where I paint the Potting Shed paintings.

Let's join Bentley and go inside so I can share with you  my indoor studio where I also create.

My indoor studio is located in my 450 square foot garage.  I knew when I bought the house it would make a great art studio as it has very high ceilings with a loft feeling, a wonderful tall window, dry wall finished walls, and  lots of built in storage. I faux finished the concrete floor and divided the space with vintage shutters and screens. Last year I decided to enlarge my painting space to take up the entire garage and gave all of my screens, shutters, etc. to a friend for her home and garden shop.

In this shot you can see the window, storage cabinets and high ceilings. I have "day light" florescent lighting  and the lighting is great for painting - but hard to photograph!

Bentley loves to hang out in the studio with me.

I hung some of my art on the walls and the space feels more like a "loft style " art  studio now. The old green ladder is used to display flowers I am painting. I can open the door, which looks out onto the driveway/courtyard, if I need more light and also pull my car in at night.  I recently taught an art class to my art group, The EastSide Artists, and was able to easily seat eight artists in my new space.  The additional space has me now considering teaching more art classes!

I use the umbrella at art shows and leave it up as it creates the feel of a flower shop.  Most of the flowers in the French tins are silk so that I can have flowers year round when not in season if I need them to paint.  I also have some live plants in pots that grow quite well by the window.  The vintage wicker picnic baskets are used for storage.

I buy fresh flowers from the market for just a few dollars that have been marked down as " Managers Special" as the blooms are past their prime for selling, but perfect for me to paint.  

One of my favorite quotes: 

"I must have flowers, always, and always"  Claude Monet 

Water color pencils and brushes are stored in galvanize tins.  The red Bistro chair, basket, Sunflowers and blue Hydrangeas were used in the painting below.

I store my canvases and painting supplies in the built in cabinets along the wall.  I store my various garage tools, ladder, seasonal holiday decorations, etc. behind the white curtains under the built in cabinets.  I also have a curtain hiding my washer and dryer.

This is a little work area I created on the other side of the garage. The  vintage shutters behind the work table hide my exercise bicycle and provide more storage.  I find that I am a lot more creative now that I am organized and do not have to spend  time looking for things.  The white storage bins came from Joann's Fabric and I keep my art books, etc. in them.  The big white cabinet stores mismatched china and things that I use in my still life paintings. I found it in a neighbors trash and brought it home in the back of my SUV with one inch to spare!! It has an old mirror on top that reflects more of my items that I use in my paintings.  I also have storage under the work table behind the check curtains ( can you tell - I am real BIG on using curtains to hide unsightly things???)

As you can see - my mismatched china in the old white cabinet could use a little  more organizing!

I bought these adorable flower pots at the 99 cent store and they are great for keeping things organized as well as have a garden feel.

I also use my work table for painting  smaller paintings.

This is the other side of my studio. The large white buffet is used to store my paints and more garden props. The buffet has drawers with dividers for silverware and I use it to store paints. The curtains do a great job at hiding messy - but necessary  things.  They are stapled and I just undo the staples to wash them and then staple  them back up!

 Here is a shot of the entrance to the studio from inside the house showing the white buffet cabinet.  The tall curtain hides the hot water heater and tall items. The curtains  came from Target and were $7.95 each and have been a great inexpensive way to hide unsightly necessary things and create an all white background in my studio. The concrete floor was painted with patio paint about 12 year ago and has held up very well.

Paints are stored underneath in baskets according to color.

Thank you for stopping by to visit me and my creative spaces - I hope you enjoyed your visit. Blessings, Erin

 Many Thanks go to the fabulous and beautiful Karen Valentine for creating the 5th Annual Where Bloggers Create Blog party.  Please make sure that  you visit all of the Bloggers participating for a real treat at: 

www.mydesertcottage.com

"Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones."  Proverbs 16:24

Painting Pink Hydrangeas With Eastside Art Group

Welcome Dear Readers.  I am so happy that you stopped by.  My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea while I share with you the inspirations for my art. This year I was invited to join a talented and joyful group of local artists - Eastside Art Group -the talents of the artists are many and varied from Jewelry Making , Metal Smiting  Gourd Art, Graphic Art, Print Making, Photoshop Art, Arts and Crafts, Painting Techniques and  Sewing -  just to mention a few.  Each month we take turns meeting at the home of one of the artists for a fun day of creating. The host artist teaches the group and shares one of her special talents. 

The group chose to learn to paint pink 'hydrangeas when it was my turn to host. Let's join Bentley, My Studio Assistant, in the garden to gather some pink Hydrangeas to paint.

Now let's join Bentley in the studio to show you how it was set up for  the class.

I have a very large garage with a window and lots of storage space - it also has a very high ceiling and lot of great light and finished dry wall on the walls.  I faux painted the  floor  and it makes a fabulous art studio as I can open the doors for more light if necessary.

I use the old vintage ladder to display flowers and objects that I am painting. The umbrella is used at art shows and I love leaving it up in my studio - it creates the feel of a flower market.

 My painting in progress:

I was too busy to take photos of the completed paintings - everyone did a fabulous job painting.  I was so proud of the outcome  - especially as this was the first time for me to teach  painting techniques to adults. Thank you to  Jacki Long for taking  some photos of the 'works in progress" that I am sharing below:

This is my completed painting - I only wish I had photos of the students completed works as they were wonderful.  I had so much fun teaching the class that I am seriously considering  teaching more classes at my studio!!!  Stay tuned.

Thank you for stopping by,  I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate your visits, comments, e-mails, and those of you who follow my blog.  Please let me know if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something or if you might be interested in taking an art class on painting techniques from me if I decide to teach more classes.



                                                  A friend loveth at all times."  Proverbs

Sunflowers - Here .... There. . .Everywhere

Welcome dear Readers.  I am so happy that you stopped by.  My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit with a cup of tea and relax for a few minutes in my garden while I share with you the inspirations for my art.

Recently I was driving around the neighborhood and noticed how many Sunflowers and bright yellow flowers were blooming.  I was so taken with the bright yellow and red flowers growing on a picket fence that I stopped and took a photo.  

The owner came out and I introduced myself and gave her my business card so she would not think I was a "stalker".  She said lots of people do the same thing and asked me if I would like a bouquet -
of course I said yes and she picked me a bouquet and gave it to me in a charming little jelly jar.  

Even though I set out on my neighborhood "drive-by" looking for Sunflowers I decided to go to the nursery to look for this charming plant - YEAH - I found two  containers of them and learned that  they are Gaillardia - Gallo Orange.  The same plant that grew around my Grandparents Beach Cottage at Wrightsville Beach, N.C. where my family spent our glorious Summers. I loved picking bouquets of them for the table and the flower brought back many fond memories.

Bentley, my helpful Studio Assistant, immediately checked out our new pots of Gaillardia!

By this time of year there is no room left to plant them in the garden so I planted them in pots until next Spring.

These are not Sunflowers, but I thought they were so cheerful I threw them in to show you my neighbor's pretty yellow flowers.

                                              Next year I want to plant a few of the tall multi -flower Sunflowers like my neighbor's flowers.

This year I bought some mini Sunflowers in containers and placed them around my garden for color as well as pots of fresh cut Sunflowers from the farmers market to paint.

I hate to throw away flowers when they reach their prime and put the old Sunflower blooms in a basket in the garden for a little more color. I was inspired to paint a basket of Sunflowers and started composing my work.

The Geraniums outside my kitchen door are in their glory and I decided to add two pots of Geraniums to the painting along with the basket of old Sunflower blooms.

This is one of my favorite photos of Bentley smelling the Geraniums and I am sharing it again this year.

 I also added my red scissors and some Lavender and a little pot of white flowers.

                                                             Here is the finished painting.

Thank you for stopping by.  I love hearing from you and sincerely appreciate your visits, comments, e-mails and those of you who follow my blog.  As I mentioned previously, I am getting ready to have knee replacement surgery in July and may not be posting as frequently. If you check in and I have not posted that is the reason - my plan is to keep posting once a week - but there may be times when it is every other week so please keep checking in.

Have a lovely week.   Blessings,   Erin

                               "He hath made every thing beautiful in his time."   Ecclesiastes 3:41`