The Warrior Mask.

Back in late December I picked up this mask belonging to a Wallingford family. Their sweet son suffered from cancer as a baby and had to wear this mask when he underwent radiation treatment. For the family, the mask is representative of victory that is strongly tinged with sadness and struggle. About a year after his treatment ended, this child's loving mom had the motivation to artistically reassign the mask a look of triumph and strength. 

"Keaton the Warrior" 2010 plastic, acrylic, beads, gold leaf, paper, wire

I was excited about this project from the start, and grateful that the family chose me as their artist. Because it's such a meaningful piece for the family, I wanted it to be AMAZING and only add to it elements that I was very excited about and felt confident would be representative of this family. Trying to sense what would be meaningful in terms of design, color, and symbolism, I was able to create a powerful piece that included some touches that are very personal to me as well(most special being the African beads that were given to me by my lovely great-aunt Irene, who spent her youth in Angola).

The protective mask before artwork

Now in mid-May the family finally has the mask back in their home. We're all thrilled with the transformation. 

Snails and Puppy Dog Tails.

This past week I had the opportunity to paint for a little boy which was super since I haven't painted a boy's room in over a year. The parents came up with the idea of the planes, trains and automobile theme, and large parts of the design. Their 2 1/2 year old son was definitely into it! I love how it looks. As with most of my recent jobs, this one involved a few firsts for me: a growth chart, painting a background for 3-D letters, and incorporating text within a mural. Take a look!

Inspired by Water.

I just finished painting this step stool for a little girl who LOVES to wash her hands but can't quite reach the sink on her own yet. It will go in the powder room where I painted the simple and striking woodpecker/birch trees mural. My customer bought this stool new at Ikea. It was unstained wood with a varnish so I lightly sanded it and used the tried and true Zinnser shellac primer. Luckily for me, my customer still had the wall paint so I borrowed that as well as the red from the hallway outside of the powder room (used for the leaf and fish). I'm so happy with how this turned out since painting on a surface like this isn't ideal when the slats in the wood interrupt the design. My customer is a huge fan of water life, especially turtles, so I can't wait for her to see the final product when I drop it off tomorrow.

Happy Holidays!

I've been very neglectful of this blog, even though there's been so much art going on in my house. Things always get a little hectic before the holidays, and we've had the unexpected trial of dealing with a burst pipe that soaked the inside of our garage. As I'm rushing to prepare for a 2 week trip back east, I'd like to leave you with some photos of this Christmas chair. It was commissioned to be a Christmas present for a 7 year old boy in Reno. I love the throwback theme, even though it's not exactly PC. It was a little trickier than I expected to find reference pics for this project! You may remember seeing this chair mid-stripping in an earlier post.
I hope you all have a great Christmas/Hanukkah/Winter celebration!

Face Painting

I spent this afternoon doing face/arm painting at Cribs2Bunks in Tukwila (Southcenter Mall) while they held a child safety event. Cribs2Bunks is a fantastic baby/youth furniture store where I've painted some displays including a great train and forest-themed mural. The last and only time I ever did face painting prior to this was at the Central School Fun Fair when I was in the 6th grade, so I was a little nervous about how it would go. I made a picture chart for the kids to choose from, thanks to Jamie's brilliant suggestion. I thought the artwork looked pretty cute, but I wasn't so sure how it would go on squirmy kids! I practiced on Brett to test out the paint and my skills, and both seemed ok. It turned out to be a blast. The kids were hilarious and a lot more still than I expected!

Birds, baby.

In the spirit of cuteness I painted this piece for a baby shower that I went to today. Birds have been pretty popular for a while. Maybe they're over-done but I still think they're adorable. Before I moved out west I had 15 little birds, which I would never recommend to anyone, but I sometimes miss their morning concerts.

This little work of baby art is called "First Chirp", and is acrylic on canvas. I painted a black and white border on the edges since I've heard black and white is attractive to baby eyes.

Buffalo down

I worked on this "Tree of Life" mini chair today, for one of my favorite Seattle families. My first "major" children's room mural was for an adorable little girl who now has a baby sister (see the Africa safari mural on my website for those pics). I painted a chair for this cutie-pie last year, and now the little one is getting her own. The two chairs have different seat artwork, but similar styling elements
so that they'll go together (ie checks and polka dots on edges, sanding corners down to original red paint- all still to come). I included the family's yellow lab and their aunt's cat. The cat is only 1.5" head to tail! I remember when painting that small was easy and now it's almost impossible.
Meanwhile, Watson held an anti-Earth Day celebration by de-horning his buffalo. That's the first toy his daddy bought for him, so it's pretty sentimental to us.