A Southern Home

My friends have the quintessential Southern home, both in style and hospitality! They won a house portrait from me at a silent auction to raise money for other dear friends living for Jesus in the mountains of Guatemala. I was so glad to draw this home with it's beautiful columns and amazing, big-hearted occupants!!!

Cotton

I was given my own choice of a Louisiana themed painting for an auction to support the families of men and women on deployment.

I love a Landscape!

Christmas is around the corner!

Please let me know soon if custom art is on a loved one's wishlist!

Louisiana Lovin'

One of the thing I love about doing commission work is that it pushes me to try things I've never done before.  I can also see the fruit of working at Painting With A Twist for 4 years in that I'm not afraid to try and I trust my skill.  Again, I can see my Lord's hand in this!!!

An old friend from middle school/high school asked that I do a grouping of 6 specific Louisiana themed paintings to make her Chicago home reflect her childhood one.  Can I paint a pelican?  Sure!  A magnolia?  Why not!  (With fingers crossed and a prayer!)

"Se ma mezon": Creole for "home"

Louisiana iris: state wildflower

Brown pelican: state bird

Bald cypress: state tree

"Union, Justice, Confidence": state motto

Magnolia: state flower

Thanks, Shea, old friend, for the opportunity!

Other friends, what can I do for you?

Gifts

I have had a nice break from sitting at my computer this summer.  Rather than designing and drafting homes, I've had multiple art commissions!

This first one really stretched me!  It has been a while since I've painted, generally, and probably since college that I've done a LARGE painting.  I was happy to create this barn painting for my sister to give to her husband for Father's Day.

This next painting was for my folks to give as a Thank You gift for their hosts in Colorado.  It was way smaller but, I found out, smaller isn't easier when it comes to getting in the detail!

Finally, this drawing was commissioned as a first anniversary gift as this couple sold their first home together.

I have really enjoyed sitting at my easel and trying my hand at various subject matter! 

 Stay tuned for my next post which will show you the 6-paneled piece that has occupied my last month.  

And, as always, let me know what I can do for you!!!

My Children

I'd like to share pictures I've hung in my dining room of my precious children.

This painting of one year old Liam was finally completed when he was five.  It's tough breaking out oil paints with little kids around!

So, I chose to do a drawing of two year old Larkin with her lovey (and the one time I got her into pigtails!).

I adore these kiddos and I thank God for blessing me so richly.

Let me know if your little ones need to be made into art and hung in your dining room.  I can help with that!

Pool House & Studio

Most of my architectural design clients tell me what they want, and I am more than happy to follow their lead.  This project is the first (and, to date, the only) time clients have said "show us your ideas of what to do with this."  The most amazing part is that I showed them one crazy idea, and they loved it!

They had these two out-buildings in their back yard.  One was an old pool house and the other--a mere five and a half feet away--was filled with the previous owner's trash with the roof caving in.  Here they were:

They wanted a pool house/guest quarters and an art studio.  The only things I liked were the decorative block and the vaulted ceiling!

In school, we would call that uncomfortable alley between the buildings "dead cat space."  If we wanted to use them both, I proposed connecting them and throwing a new roof over the entire thing.  We would tear out all the moldy stud construction, but save the masonry (especially the decorative block!).  Here's what I proposed:

And, the "after" pics (after building, before landscaping, I should clarify):

 pool house

 inside pool house from loft over mechanical space

 inside pool house looking up to loft

 studio

linking space with bathroom, storage, and loft

 patio outside of studio

glazing over decorative block

I am extremely excited about this project!  I'm about to dig into the site layout and a redesign on the back of the house to link everything together.

Let me know if you'd like for me to show you my ideas of what can be done with your property!

I Draw People Too!

I drew these two brothers in their Kindergarten graduation regalia.

Frozen in sweet time!

Churches

I suppose these two pencil drawings would fall under the Ecclesiastical category.

This first was commissioned as a wedding present.

This second was a small drawing I did to raise money for the Volunteers of America's LightHouse program.  It is the steeple of First Baptist Church Shreveport and I sold prints of it.  I plan to do more Shreveport steeples for charity in the future, so keep an eye out for them!

Live Oaks

Two live oak drawings by commission.  One pencil, one pen.

House Drawings

I was commissioned at Christmastime to do a couple of pen drawings of houses.

These are they:

A New Screened Porch

Here is another project finished last year.  I'm pretty jealous of this one.  A screened porch is a Louisiana necessity!

Before:

 After:

South Highlands Kitchen & Outdoors

Well, I have been blessed to be busy enough with life and work to make me negligent of this blog.  I'd like to show you, though, a project that was begun in 2012 and finished in 2014.

First, here are some before-and-afters of the kitchen, which I was hired to draft with the design by Jenny Johnston.

Before:

 After:

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Isn't that lovely!

In addition, I was hired to both design and draft the modifications to the exterior of the house.  A laundry room was added onto the back, the parking was covered, and a covered connection from the house to the detached garage was combined with an outdoor kitchen.  Here are the before-and-after images:

Before:

 After:

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The house was beautiful to begin with.  I was honored to help the owners make it more usable for their family.