Painting Classes

I'm starting my first painting classes in my home studio on Tuesday, so I've been busy setting up my classroom and trying to get organized. What a lot of work!

I'll be starting out with 5-6 students and our first project will be my Autumn Harvest Scarecrow on a small ironing board/pelt board shape.

ePatterns

Give ePatterns a try... get instant gratification and save money!

I've added lots of patterns in downloadable ePattern format. You can download the pattern as a pdf file as soon as your payment is completed... pay by Paypal and it's instant. Pay by credit card and you'll have to wait until I process your credit card and mark your order as completed. I charge $2 less for ePatterns to offset your cost of printing the pattern on your home printer, and you don't have any shipping & handling costs.

Either way, once you've downloaded your pdf file, you just open it using Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free program that comes standard on most computers. But if you don't have it you can download it at http://www.adobe.com. Print the pages on your color printer and start painting right away.

If you want to try an ePattern at no cost, just download one of my free ePatterns to see how easy it is. I have a couple available at: http://www.decorativepaintingstore.com/free_decorative_painting_pattern.html

Decorative Painting Sometimes Means Painting a Room

Even though I'd rather be painting a new design, sometimes things have to pause while you take care of housekeeping chores. Our office has achieved the title of "disaster area", so it was time to shut down and re-group. I'm giving us 2 days... hubby says it might take 2 months.

Yesterday we started pretending we were on the HGTV show, Mission-Organization. We went shopping for paint and new shelving. Then came home took everything out of the office and painted the walls. This took until about 10pm last night, and we were exhausted. (How do you get the crews from one of those shows to actually come in and do the work for you???) Dinner ended up being grilled cheese sandwiches, instead of the steak and baked potatoes I had planned earlier in the day. But this morning it was satisfying to get up to see the new fresh taupe wall color (a big improvement over the pale white-with-a-touch-of-mauve color... the previous home owner had a passion for pale blue grays and mauves and we are slowly covering them up with more "Pottery Barn-like" colors.

Today's job is to start putting things back together. Rearrange the desks, put up shelving, and figure out where is the best place to position 2 computers, 4 printers, 2 scanners, external hard drive, DVD recorder, and large ethernet hub, then organize all the "stuff" you need in an office. So I'm really going to sort through and throw away 75% of the junk that was on my desk! I really love being things to be streamlined and organized, but I have a terrible time maintaining this state... I'm the ultimate clutterbug!

Well, off to organize! I'll keep you posted how things end up.

Decorative Artist Uses For Hand Sanitizer

Did you know hand sanitizer gel is great for the decorative artist, for things beyond cleaning and sanitizing your hands? I buy the big pump bottle of Member's Mark brand hand sanitizer at Sam's Club and keep it on my studio table... but any brand will do. I buy the little samples sizes at Wally World and they are great for traveling or classes.

Cleaning Dirty Brushes... It works great to clean your brushes, even dried in acrylic paints.

Squirt a little in your hand and stroke your brush back and forth... even dried acrylics dissolve in a flash. Wipe your brush with a paper towel (I like to fold the towel around the bristles, pulling from ferrule to end of bristles, pinching them flat between my fingers to remove dirty gel), repeat until the gel stays clean.

For brushes that are excessively dirty, use one of the little heart scrubby pads. Hold the brush almost horizontal to the pad, and be sure to pull the brush from ferrule to tip of bristles to minimize damage to your bristles. Never scrub back and forth. This little pad will "comb" the dried paint out of your brush.

When you have finished, reshape the bristles with your fingers (you can even pull the bristles over a bar of soap to use as sizing), then lay the brush flat to dry.

Drybrush Techniques... Hand sanitizer also works great when you are doing a drybrush technique and don't want to get water in your brush between colors. Just clean your brush as above, the sanitizer will evaporate quickly leaving you with a fresh dry brush to continue. Caution, you want to make sure the sanitizer has evaporated before brushing on your painted surface because it could soften the paint you have already applied. I can tell when the sanitizer has evaporated by stroking the brush back and forth over the back of my hand... when the bristles no longer feel cool, you know the sanitizer has evaporated out of the brush.

I'm a NEW Blogger / Treasure Box Program

Hi everyone!

I'm jumping on the blogging bandwagon. Hopefully, I'll be able to use this to keep you updated on what's going on at The Decorative Painting Store, and in my life as a decorative artist.

What I've Been Up To?
This week, I've been working on a simple design to include in the new Treasure Box CD which will be coming out at the May convention of the Society of Decorative Painters in Tampa, FL. I've done a little design inspired by my standard poodle, Bogart.

Read more about the Treasure Box Program. This wonderful program was started by Ladybug (Jan McCraw) in affiliation with Shriners Hospitals to provide a handpainted treasure boxes for children up to 18 years of age who are hospitalized.

The 2008 CD will include many designs by a variety of decorative artists.

Be sure to visit my website: decorativepaintingstore.com