Lynette (my sister) and I started doing Folk Art painting classes when I was just pregnant with my eldest daughter. Looking back, that is over 12 years ago, where did the time go? Anyway, I had 6 months of classes before I had to stop as I couldn't fit behind the table any more, lol. Lynette continued with the classes for a while longer, and we began painting at my home once a week. This is something that we have continued on and off over the last 12 years when time permitted. I love to paint, but until this year I haven't really felt confident coming up with my own designs. We usually source our designs and plans from one of the many books on Folk Art that we have acquired over the years.
The paints we use are Jo Sonya Artists Colours, which are always reliable, and produce a brilliant range of colours for us to work with. Luckily for us, there are a great range of conversion charts we can use, because Folk Art is a predominantly American or European craft, and most of the paints aren't available here. Using the charts we are able to mix up our own versions of them and off we go.
In the early days we used to sell our painted items as a way to finance our next project. I would like to get back to doing that again, but first I have a really fun project that I am working on. One of my friends on Facebook posted about a project called "Pay it Forward 2011", and I have decided to take part in it. The idea of the project is that I will hand-make something for 5 of my online friends during the year 2011, on the proviso that they will do the same for 5 of their friends and so on and so on. My friends very eagerly took me up on the offer, and even more exciting, two of them are from the US! I would love to say that this is the first time my craft will travel to foreign shores, but years ago I painted a photo frame for my great aunt in Holland. Anyway, I am very excited about this project, and have actually created my own designs for some of the pieces.
I am not going to post pictures of this project until I have finished all the pieces as I don't want to give anything away until they have all been posted out. I have created a page here called Artwork that I invite you to look at. This page contains a few photos (taken on old film cameras a long time ago, so please pardon the quality) of different pieces I have painted over the years. I hope you like them! :)
2 comments:
Jen the pieces are really lovely, I had a look, although I'd already seen a couple of them at your house. Also thanks for the recipe page.
Just for those that are wondering, I'm one of the people getting the pay it forward project, or I should say already received my treasure. I won't say anything about it yet, other than I love it. Jen will post photos later in the year.
That's so cool Jen :) Besides painting things like plaques and lettering for awards and keys and such I haven't painted much. Maybe someday... I can't wait to see what you've done for everyone (and me!) ;) for Pay it Forward. I need to start working on my projects as well... :)
Post a Comment