Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Paintings

I love to be surrounded by art. I bought a whole stack of musty old art books at the local book sale this summer, and cut them up to paper my dorm. It is the same way in my dollhouse.I can't seem to resist paintings in miniature. This copy of Renoir's In the Meadow is probably my favorite painting. Josephine Meyers does amazing work, and the painting has a lot of sentimental value as well.
I found this painting of ships at the IGMA show a few years ago, and couldn't resist it. The paint has a lovely dimension in real life, which is hard to find in miniature. Most of the paintings I see seem to be thinned down oils, applied with near-invisible brushstrokes. The strokes in this painting are so lively in contrast.

This painting is by an eBay seller named Sylvia Rose, who sells mainly dollhouse curtains, tapestries, and re-upholstered furniture. She only lists a few of her oil paintings on vellum each year. Many of her paintings are copies of Vigee Le Brun, one of my favorite artists, so I'm always tempted to bid, even though I'm quickly running out of wall space in my dollhouse!

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Bamboo Chair



This was one of the very first miniatures my mom made for my dollhouse. I desperately wanted a bamboo chair for the parlor, but couldn't find anything that looked right. Nothing was quite as delicate, and the "bamboo" all looked unnatural. So mom made the bamboo by wrapping wire around thin dowels, then built the chair. The rush seat is made from stained string. I painted the chair.

P.S. Sorry about the picture quality. I found my camera, but the charger was not in the case for some odd reason. Two steps forward, one step back.