Category: art

Winter Artwork

On By stefrobrtsIn art, barclay, cars, navi, pets, photography, snow, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Wow, it has been a long, cold, boring winter. I don’t remember a winter that has been this cold, or snowed so many times. We usually barely get any snow, and usually get none at all. But this winter…well, at least the dogs enjoyed it!

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Not sports car weather!

 

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I do love it when the trees look like this, especially against a bright blue sky.

 

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And I love the dramatic shadows cast by the low winter sun.

 

Tree Shadow

So I cleaned it up in photoshop and made a piece of art of it. That is actually a pretty nice way to pass the time when trapped inside by winter cold.

 

Mount Navi

Winter Navi.

We also went to a Winter Woolies horse show and took some photos. I love doing horse photos.

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And then for something completely different:

boats in the bay

This piece was made from a screenshot from Red Dead Redemption 2. I added the textures to make the sky-glow and painted it. I was really happy with how it turned out.

So that’s how I’ve been fighting the winter doldrums! Luckily it is almost over, and spring is on its way.

Art around The Rancho

On By stefrobrtsIn art, barclay, navi, photography, TheRancho3 Comments

 

We have been having so much fun picking up art for our new home, decorating it with little fun things that make us happy. Really, to me even the furniture seems like art, since it’s all old and unique – it’s unlikely to find similar pieces to the ones we’ve found.

 

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Let’s start with the centerpiece of the bedroom – the geese painting. We found this at an antique store in Portland, but I went home and thought about it for a day before going back to buy it. It wasn’t expensive, I just wasn’t sure about it. I’m glad we got it though, the colors are great for the bedroom, and it started giving us a nature theme to decorate around.

I like the style of it – it feels 70s to me. The way the clouds are just shapes with no definition but the geese look more realistic. The trees and brown grass and reflections in the water, well, that all reminded me of our home in the country and our visits to the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge.

 

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It appears to be an actual painting, not just a print. That’s kind of cool to know we have something which someone actually created with their own hands. Good job, ‘Jane’, whoever you are!

Now we have a goose/nature theme going on in the bedroom. We were buying our couches at another antique store when I spotted these wall plaques, and had to have them:

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A closer look:

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These were probably part of a triptych, with the center piece being a clock, but the clock is gone. I saw a very similar set with flowers instead of geese on them. But I’m happy to have these, they look great on the wall behind the TV.

There are more bedroom geese coming, but I have one more wall to paint before I show those off. Maybe this weekend.

In the front room we have the Japanese silk paintings, which I’ve shown off before, and the picture of Barclay, and I just added a matching picture of Navi, so these two make a cute set on the wall.

 

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And then there’s the Matador…

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Every 70s home needs a Matador! Dave grew up with a Matador painting over the fireplace in his parent’s house. We saw this one on CL for $40, but it was about an hour away. Eventually we saw it in an antique store for $100 and we thought, well, they must have bought it and marked it up and now it was way out of our price range, which was too bad because it was pretty impressive in person. It’s a print with painted highlights. Then we saw it on CL again the next week! There were two of them in town! So we ran out to the folks selling it for $40 and bought it. As the lady handed it to us she gave us a funny look and said ‘Are you sure this fits into your décor?’, in a way that indicated she didn’t think it could possibly fit into ANYONE’S décor! Oh yes, we assured her. And it fits very nicely into the living room, particularly with the yellow couches. We LOVE the Matador!

 

My latest acquisition was a Goodwill find. This afternoon after volunteering at the barn, I went back up to Battle Ground to order food at our favorite Thai place and bring it home. I had a little time to kill so I went to Goodwill to look for frames I could buy and put my own photography in, and spotted this:

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Hmmm, I thought, that’s pretty groovy. It says John Eastman, 1973 on it. I couldn’t decide if I should buy it or not though – fully framed and behind glass, it was a whole $4. Maybe I am a little cheap!

So I called Dave after I picked up our food and asked him what he thought, and he was like ‘duh, for $4? GO GET IT!’ So I went back, and poking around found another one! (the lines down the middle are reflections)

 

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And yeah, they are pretty groovy. I hung them in the kitchen, which is the only place we still have some bare walls!

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So that’s it for now. We’re having so much fun decorating our vintage house. Just wait until you see what I have planned to finish off the bedroom!

 

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Framed at last!

On By stefrobrtsIn art, TheRancho2 Comments

In 2009 I posted a picture of my Grandfather’s silk painting, and the silk painting we had recently found in an antique shop for $20.

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Well, here it is a few years later and we finally got the second painting framed, and hung them both in the front room where we can enjoy looking at them. We had the framing done at the local frame shop, and I was really impressed with the way the new frame made the silk painting look so much better than the ratty old frame it had been mounted in. The matt really makes the colors pop! It’s gorgeous now!

I don’t care for all the shadows from the lamp below them, but eventually there will be a couch against that wall, and the lamp will move to an endtable.

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Silk Paintings

On By stefrobrtsIn art1 Comment

Sorry for the bad picture, it’s hard to take a picture of a picture.

We don’t have a lot of artwork around the house. One of the few pieces that really means something to me is this beautiful Japanese silk painting, at least I think that’s what it is. I know it’s on silk. It was my great grandfather’s, and then my grandfather had it in his room, and then after he passed I asked Grandma if I could have it. I had always loved it, and could spend hours gazing into it and wondering who lived in the houses and where the boats were going.

It had spent many years in a cheap wooden frame, pressed up against the glass, and a few years ago I noticed the paint was sticking to the glass in spots. So I took it to a frame shop and had it archive framed with acid free paper and all that.

Today we spent our day off downtown, had lunch, and then went to the antique stores, and I saw this:

Another vintage silk painting! It’s not as colorful or detailed as mine, but for $20 I had to have it. There is something about paint on silk, it is beautiful, it almost glows. Someday I’ll have to have this one re-framed to match the other and display them side by side. I was just so surprised to see another old silk painting. I love it!