Artist Stephanie Birdsall demonstration

Farmhouse by Stephanie Birdsall

 Art can reflect the soul. With the careful mixing of hues and strokes, an emotion or moment in time is captured.

Framed art is one of the main staples of home decor. Everyone's tastes vary, but most people will agree that hanging something on the wall that reflects your style and tastes makes your house more of a home. It creates the feeling and atmosphere that you want your home to exude.

I love spending idyllic Saturday afternoons in art galleries looking at paintings and wondering if the artist had an underlying meaning in the painting and maybe if you look hard enough you will understand the message, or maybe what you see is all that is meant to be seen, nothing more.

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to watch an artist in action. Saks Galleries hosted a demonstration by artist Stephanie Birdsall. Stephanie received her formal training at the City and Guilds of London Art School in England. She currently lives in Arizona but has plans to move to Denver by the end of the year.

To me, it's a privilege to see a work of art come to life, to see the process that the artist goes through. For this demonstration, she painted pansies. As she painted she explained her process, why she was adding a stroke, or taking one out, and how she was layering colors.

Stephanie didn't finish this piece that afternoon but here are some of her pieces available at Saks Galleries.  My favorite is Farmhouse, the one you see at the top of this post. I wish I could take it home!

Red, White and Blue by Stephanie Birdsall

Wild Roses by Stephanie Birdsall

Lilacs by Stephanie Birdsall

Forgotten Tea by Stephanie Birdsall

Festival by Stephanie Birdsall

If you'd like to learn more about Stephanie and to see more of her work, you can visit her website at stephaniebirdsall.com.

I'm sharing with:

My first attempt at distressing furniture

I've always liked the look of distressed furniture but never thought I could do it myself until Mr. H gave me this book as a gift: color recipes for painted furniture by annie sloan. She gives instructions on how to transform tired looking furniture into something entirely different with paint "recipes".

 

After reading the book I was inspired and ready to experiment. I needed a piece of furniture that we didn't care too much about and found this chess table. I forgot to take a "before" picture so this is the best one I could find.

 

I must admit that although the book was an inspiration, I didn't follow the instructions exactly...as I did not have the same paints and tools that she had and I figured I could improvise with what I already had.

Here is what I did:

1) Painted the wood with white spray paint

2) After it dried, I sanded the edges with 150 grit sandpaper

3) I realized I needed another color to offset the white, so I took some light blue paint and blended it into some of the joints and seams with my fingers.  Here is the finished product:





My favorite part of the distressing was the little crater on
the right corner that I didn't notice before.

Some lessons learned:

1) Don't worry about being too careful. After my first attempt at sanding and trying to make it look distressed, you could hardly tell I did anything. I was afraid of taking too much paint off. I had to sand off more paint to get the look I wanted. Do not be too scared of "ruining" the piece of furniture. It's supposed to look used and kind of like it's falling apart!

2) Something else I would do differently next time is paint the color I want to "peek" through first, under the main color. In this case, it would have been the light blue under the white. Then when you sand it, the color underneath will show through.