Here is one that took some real effort. Very subtle, but my kids say that's me. It needs more coats of varnish - I'm waiting for a shipment!
Decorative Containers
Another of the daisy pot. It was not easy to get pics with several cats vying for attention.
oops.
Another of the blue pot. The streaking is prettier than the first photo shows.
Chris: I love the pots! I really like the faux finish that you have going with the streaking, it looks great. The color combinations are excellent. Do you decide before you start a pot what colors you are going to use, or do you just wing it once you get started?? And the lettering with the silver stamping, that is a clever idea too. I have some celtic stamps that I could do something with. You need a yellow or white Gerbera Daisy to put into the cute daisy pot. That'll really confuse the bumble bees 8-) These are really great, keep up the good work so I can stay inspired. I am thinking outside the pot now! 8-D Renate
I lost this thread immediately after my 7/8 posting. duh - didn't mark it to watch.
Hey - schneeflocke. Your very early pot posting - does this look familiar? Its my
mailbox I painted this winter.
Tammi: Your mailbox does look very familiar! LOL! I love it. Are you a One-Stroke Painter also? It's the only way I can make anything look normal. I would love to do a mailbox but my boyfriend would put his foot down. Way to girly to suit him. LOL How long has it looked like that? Will it look like that for years? Thanks, Renee
Absolutely - Donna Dewbury I believe. My husband bought me this blank grey mailbox for
Christmas. I opened the box and thought "OMG, what was he thinking!" and it must have
showed on my face. He said "Don't you remember? You said you wanted to paint one". Well,
I guess I had said that a few years earlier & had totally forgotten. So... having no artist talents, I
remembered one-stroke painting, bought the book & paints and went to work.
I'm very lucky - my husband was very proud of it. He put it in his christmas letter (yep - we each
write our own.) Said it fit my personality! "Lots of exuberant color" or some such. LOL
I just painted it over the holidays '05-06 so I don't know for sure how long it will last. But the
paint was for just such an application so I'm hoping a very long time. It has no signs of wear
yet (but only 7mo so far).
Tam
hey tam - i never saw this !!! another talent i didn't know you had :>)
i love it!!!
Tammy: do you extend you painting to flower pots also? If not, you should try it. What I like is that if it doesn't turn out, you can always take a hammer to it and use the shards like gravel at the bottom of a pot 8-) Here are a couple of my One Stroke pots. These were done well over a year ago.
Here is another one.... My mother liked this design so much that she comissioned me to paint her a larger one in this style.
Here is my first faux-finish pot. I'm quite proud of this one. I used brown, copper, yellow and some kind of peachy color from what I remember. Then I put a silver border at the top rim.
Hi, All. Welcome back, Tammy - glad you found us!
Renee, again I am impressed. Looking at your pots and Tammy's mailbox, I realize I'll have to buy the one-stroke book. I see them at the store and wonder if they are helpful - now I know they are by looking at the beautiful products you two have made. And I think the faux finish one is just lovely. Where did you get such an interestingly shaped pot, by the way?
As for my 'technique' (hah, hah): I usually have an idea of what colors I will use. Of course, sometimes things take on a life of their own. I added sponging to both the blue and yellow pots, but on the yellow one it just bubbled up and turned into green streaks on its own!
I love the idea of confusing the bees with the daisy pot. Maybe I'll put it near my monarda and really make them nuts. :-)
One recommendation about the stamps, now that I have tried it: be very careful about smudging - at least, if you use real stamping pads. I ended up spraying the stinky stuff on the lettering so I could brush on the final coats of sealer. By the way, I bought some of the paint pens you mentioned - what a great tool! I am waiting for a new pot to dry [ what weather we are having in PA! ] and will post a photo soon. I used the yellow/black/white idea we discussed with Becky.
Phew. Now that the weather is semi-decent, I guess I better go pull some weeds. :-{
Chris
I realize I had promised more photos of the rosy pot and of the violet/green one with its petunias in bloom.
And..
And...
lovely sissy! I like the blue w/blue on the last. And I haven't (yet) done any
pots but its on my list for the next dreary day. Too much to do when its nice
outside. :-)
Handhelpers!!! Welcome back!!! I'll be calling you soon to check in on you.
Maybe you'll want to try this painting technique too?
Tam
Hi Guys! I have been so buried in work that I have barely had a chance to read the thread, let alone reply to any of them! I am inspired, just have no danged time to get my paints out and do anything about them! When I get back from my next trip I am going to head to a pottery outlet and see what I can find for pots, start accepting a little less work and actually have some time to start on my containers and enjoy the rest of the late summer/fall!
All the pics y'all have posted are awesome, keep up the good work and I will start painting some containers dang it!! (Working from home is great, but it has it's disadvantages, particularly when I can't say NO to projects! Just ask my hubby, he looked me today and asked "who are you"??? Think he is telling me I spend too much time in the office??!!)
Chris, Tammy: I can't wait to see the outcome of all this design energy! The pot that I did the faux finish on was a clay pot from Wal-Mart. I bought it a few years ago and I love that pot. I bought a few of them and never saw them again. Guess What! Wal-Mart has these pots again!!! For $3-$4 a pot roughly. I loaded up with about 7 of them. It is late in the season, so I don't know if they still have any in the stores but it might not hurt to go look. They generally have them where they keep the gardening stuff inside the store and not in the gardening center outdoors. Note that they don't have a hole in them. It isn't a problem for me, all my succulents do fine in them. Here is the same pot with a different design. It is very easy to do stripes since the pot is tiered.
Looks terrific! And I love those lithops aka living stones. Have yours bloomed yet?
Tam
My D recieved this as a " just because" gift from a neighbor and I have put it on MY must have list.... should we put something in it or leave it as a garden sculptor...I cannot decide.... shirleyt
Shirley, how does one find neighbors like that??? I love it!
Bec you go on vacation and give the neighbor the garden key to your gardens and pool area to enjoy while you are gone.... and just plain enjoy each others friendship over years....shirley
Tammy: Yes, those puppies are mature enough and have bloomed in the past. They bloom in the winter, while another one I have is blooming now. Most of my mature lithops bloom in the winter. I have a photo of the currently blooming one in a thread that I started under Cactus and Succulents. It's in a painted pot, but I didn't paint it.
ShirleyT: I love that container! Looks like someone dug it up from 2,000 years ago. It would look great either empty or planted. You can always switch from summer to summer, one summer an ornament only, the next summer a container garden. I've seen similar containers that will have various species of hens and chickens in it or you could put plants that drape down in the lower containers and something that grows 'up' in the upper container.
I am currently painting again. I hope to have something to share in a couple of weeks. I am attempting to do some 'Southwest'-themed items using painted desert colors. One I've already painted over since I didn't like the way it turned out, but two others look to be finished shortly. Talk to everyone later. Renee
Tammy that mailbox is beeee-u-teee-ful! Such talent. I bought the one stroke video and the brushes, and books, and practice pages of Donna Dewberry. I have tried to do it and just can't get it down. Every now and then I get a leaf that looks like a leaf but that's about it.
Chris love that blue pot you painted. Very, very pretty.
Renee, love how those tiered pots look. Super. Especially the one with the browns and yellows. Those one-stroke pots are so pretty. Your succulents are absolutely gorgeous.
So much talent here! I tried painting a pot once and it looked horrid! Hubby had a good chuckle. You are all giving the itch to try it again. We'll see.
Keep posting the great work. It's very inspiring. Love the work.
Gay Lynn
I think all the painted pots are gorgeous! Thanks! What kind of really big pots do y'all get?
We have a huge space, and big pots are needed.
Lou
Staceysmom: Thanks for your kind words. Please note that I have NOT shown ANY of the pots that I painted in the first two years I started. I have photos of those, and they are, well, not something you'd want to share with anyone 8-) It just takes practice, that's all. Lots and lots of practice. I look back at the very early ones and the things I do now and I can tell a big difference. If you don't feel comfortable doing One-Stroke you could always do abstract, stamps or stencils instead. There are excellent examples of that on this thread. Or the faux-finish. I got myself a couple of books on faux-finishing walls and Illumination Manuscripts and then tried that out. We are all considering decoupage also, which wouldn't involve any painting at all. Just don't get discouraged! As I mentioned earlier I just painted over a pot that I had just painted because I just didn't like the way it turned out. Have fun with it, there are no rules! Renee
Hey everyone, thought I would post what my D did with her pot...she decided since it is late in season.. that she would just use it as sculptor this year...here it is nestled into an area by the pool looking great.....I love it....
Looks right at home..... like its been there for years. I like it.
All of your pots are so attractive . I have some big ugly plastic or stryofoam type pots which I would love to paint or something. Has anyone a suggestion for such a project?
I have never tried any painting of anything so am clueless - do you put a base coat on the pottery or just paint away?
here is another one to share with you. MY D is a collector of beautiful pots.
The photo finish is pretty cool too! What software are you using?
Tam
Tammy I just saw your post.....The software I use is Jasc paint shop 4 Dell version. I purchased it as an upgrade to my computer. I also have the 5 version. Jasc has sold out to Corel and as far as I know it is unavailable now. The Corel version has the same frames. You can download it for a trail period. Then you can decide if you want it... shirleyt
sissy....how did you do the daisy pot?? it is fabulous
I had my trial with Jasc but I didn't notice that feature. Perhaps I should buy it...
thanks for the response.
Tam
Hi everybody! It has been one awful month at work! Nose to the grindstone and all that. Challenging co-workers, runaway projects, you get the idea. Well, I am finally back to show off a couple of new pots that I just completed and just planted. This is what I am calling one of my Southwest motif pots. Lizards and turtles, I like them both. I wanted to do something different with the rim so I got fancy with the paint pens. I put in a couple of the jade varietals that I got from gosucculent.com
This is the other side...
Snowtop: I don't know about styrofoam, but the plastic pots you might be able to paint with acrylic paints and then top it off with a clear varnish. It might work with the styrofoam too, but I'd suggest you start with the plastic ones first. If you are nervous or unsure what to paint, just find a color you love and paint one a solid color first to get comfortable with it. Then you can get fancier with the next one. Dots, stripes, dots and stripes, spatter, let your imagination run wild. If you hate it, you can always paint over it! Let us know how it turns out and post your photos here. Cheers, Renee
Here is my other Southwest motif planter. It is a deep saucer that I am using as a shallow broad planter. I really liked the way it turned out with the abstract design. It's sibling didn't fare so well and has been painted over for me to try again. The planting is ambitious since I am attempting to make it a tiered planting. I got the idea from rock gardens at the local aboretum. I like the way it turned out and I am hoping that as the roots take I will be able to add more soil up to the top of the white rim of the center planting. I hope you enjoy looking at these and that I am giving you lots of ideas to try with your pots.
Thanks Renee - I'll give it a go - and post pics of triumph or disaster.