Margaritaville

I had a lady call that loved my wine paintings on my website,but they didn't like wine. She laughed and said,  "My husband likes beer!"  I told her about a mural that I had painted of National Bohemian beer. I said I could do something with pretzels and beer. She said that was fine -but she didn't really like beer either-she like margaritas. I said let's go with salsa  & chips with all the ingredients to make the salsa and the margarita for her and beer and pretzels for her husband. I hope you enjoy it.

Margaritaville

Triumphs

I'm a big fan of Triumph cars and belong to a car club with my husband, Rick. For the 2008 Regional meeting, I had the opportunity to design the trophy for the event as our club was hosting the event. We had a friend who had recently purchased a 1949 Tr2000. It is a beautiful car that has a different look than a lot of the Triunphs-a look that is one, I personally, love. I love the old '40 Fords,Chevrolets, Willys,etc
It also was a car that was going to be featured at the Nationals that year. So, to me it was the perfect choice to paint for the trophy.The event was going to be in Tyler, Texas, a city that is known for it's roses.
Keeping all this in mind,plus the fact that I wanted to see if I would like making tile as part of my business. I painted the following picture. This painting of the car is in the original color -which is a soft green metallic-almost a seafoam green. This  color I thought was pretty unique for a 1949 car. I painted the car with a British flag background, combining the Triumph logo and the Tyler city logo.  I later had to change the car color for the trophy-as it would be impossibe to match it in ceramic glaze and the cost for putting it on a t-shirt was another story.
I  made a relief of the painting-with a space for the metal plaques that  would describe the event the trophy was awarded underneath the relief. Then, the insanity started. From a mother mold, we poured well over 140 trophies. Members from the club would come over for painting parties-each trophy was painted 3 times in underglazes fired and then painted with clear glaze and fired again. This was a lot of work -not to mention pressing clay in the mold in the first place-and then pulling the piece-hoping it came out well and dried without cracking. This took weeks to accomplish-sometimes only to have the piece break in the firing process.
Needless to say, I decided I was not going to get into making tile! It was a learning experience and I was happy with the final outcome. Here is a link to the event-

http://www.redrivertriumphclub.org/regional2008_photos.html

Triumphs and roses

Cowtown

This is a mural I did as a display for a large tile store in Ft. Worth. We discussed about painting  Cowtown and the Stockyards so that would represent the city. We talked about all the things that could fulfill that goal-Bass Hall, The "Tarantula" train, the Stockyards, the cattle drive mural in downtown Ft. Worth, and of course,the beautiful courthouse. This was painted on 16" tumbled marble. I painted it like you would see a  sports posters-fading from one scene to the next. I loved the way it all worked out. After installing it in the front of the store-where it was the first thing you saw,the manager called and asked if I could add to it to spread it out a little more.

My daughter and I went to the store to add to it-thinking two artists would be faster than one. But it had to be a funny sight as my daughter was quite pregnant with her son and the mural was low and hard to get to paint. We added a windmill and the Texas flag,an armadillo,etc. We were happy with the finished product. Unfortunately, the tile store  recently closed that location and moved to a Dallas store. The good news is that they did call and told me that they saved the mural and I now have it-I'll probably end up putting it in another Ft. Worth store. I have sold several variations of the mural-enjoy:)

Lizzard Nest Ranch

I had a customer call that loved lizzards, and was building a new home on the family's farm. On the farm were some old buildings that were falling down and a cissern that she wanted to include in the painting. She also had pictures of her iguana that she had for years. Going from pictures of the farm and the iguana, I came up with this landscape The dog was a neighbor's that was in one of her photos-she thought it would look nice in the picture-and of course it is looking a a lizzard:) The  other picture is the deco tiles that I painted for the rest of  the kitchen. This was painted on tumbled stone. After painting it, I sent her pictures,asking if I need to change anything. She said the only thing would be to make the buildings even more run down- which I did. Enjoy:)

Lizzard Nest Ranch