Canvas Rugs

For some time it has seemed to me that in this Internet age just about anything you could possibly want would be available somewhere in the world. Small niche markets that might have withered and died could revive and flourish with the economies of scale offered by reaching out to a worldwide market. 


But I have come up against a brick wall after hours and hours of googling, to find that apparently it just ain't so.


One thing I miss in my new home is area rugs. I love area rugs, especially oriental design. I had a few in my old home, but except for one they all had to be tossed in the trash when I headed south. The reason? I have one sweet elderly cat who I've owned since kittenhood, who in the last few years began *peeing* on every carpet in sight. I couldn't get them clean, had to throw out a few, replaced them with cheap carpet remnants. Those got peed on and had to be thrown out also. She's been to the vet multiple times and had multiple tests, and they can't find a thing wrong with her, and finally concluded it must be "emotional" .

So I got musing on my childhood and recalled what I had seen often back then - LINOLEUM area rugs, often in lovely oriental or floral designs. What a perfect idea that would be. Linoleum is made from natural materials so considered to be rather a "green" product. I found online articles about linoleum making a big trendy comeback in home decorating because of this. I was sure someone would have jumped into this niche market. 

But alas it seems not so. At least not that I can find, and I have googled and googled. I did find someone who agreed with me, though: Author Jane Powell, who wrote a book called "Linoleum". In a 2009 interview she said: 

 "I'm pathetically grateful to anyone who is a fan of the linoleum book—apparently it was ahead of its time. Probably my favorite vintage pattern is the linoleum oriental rug—I'd probably have one in my dining room if they still made them! All the beauty of an oriental rug with no need to worry about spilled red wine or cat barf [NOTE: or cat pee] —what's not to like?...I think there is somewhat of a resurgence, but it's based more on linoleum's "green" qualities—it's non-toxic and made from renewable resources, and gets you a few points towards LEED certification. No one seems inclined toward making the fabulous patterns again. I always joke that if I ever win the lottery I will open a linoleum factory." 

Dear Jane, I hope you will the lottery. I want those fabulous old patterns too. I'm so used to being able to get just about anything I could ever want at the touch of a computer key. It's an odd feeling to know exactly what I want and find it doesn't exist anywhere. 

The best I could find was *canvas* rugs. Beautiful works such as those at: http://canvasworksfloorcloths.com which are lovely but *way* out of my price range. Even their "blanks" to  create your own are way out of my price range, But in general that seems to be the way I must go. I've bought canvas and gesso and acrylic clear coat. I tried out an 18x18-inch sample, which I've posted above (the rug I plan to make will be round). Now I just have to decide what sort of patterns and paints I will use on the canvas. 

Alas it's not going to look anything like the lovely oriental-pattern linoleum rug I have in mind, but I guess it's the best I can do for now, or the best I can think of! 

Birdhouse ornament

The Art Guild of Orange Park  had its annual holiday party this past Tuesday night  - a fun pot luck dinner, one of my favorite things! We were all supposed to bring a homemade Christmas tree ornament too. I was totally stumped on this, but ended up buying a small plain wooden birdhouse at Michael's and then painting it and decorating it with ribbon and bows and decoupage birds, trees and holly.

Introducting my grandson

Life in Florida is still so busy! But I hope to get more time for art soon. I'm very excited to be a part of the startup of a new pastel society called the First Coast Pastel Society, which is for our area of Florida. We are planning our first group event this coming Saturday, a plein air paint-out. So maybe I'll get some work done then!

In the meantime my 2-year-old grandson spent the day with me yesterday and we wanted to paint! So I got our a couple bottles of tempera fingerpaint I had bought a couple weeks ago and we painted. I love his a lot and figured it deserved a blog post. :-)

This is the only sort of painting I've been doing lately. I just moved to Florida last week, after leaving my home of 30 years in New Jersey. Quite a change! But my son and his family moved down here a year ago, and I really wanted to be closer to them, and could no longer afford to stay in my home in NJ anymore either, having been forcibly retired from my job last year.

So I bought a cute little house in Florida in the Jacksonville area. It's on a small pond, has 4 bedrooms, a living/dining ell, den with fireplace... I enjoy sitting in the kitchen in the morning, drinking my coffee, and looking out at the pond. I've already had a couple visits from a great egret.

With 4 bedrooms I even plan to make one an art studio! Yay. The only thing I dislike about the house is the color all the walls are painted. The whole house is done up in a color I would call something like "baby poop brown". A dark and depressing color. Actually if it was the same color but about three shades lighter I'd be fine with it. But I find the color dark and heavy - something belonging in an old gothic mansion in England.

So I'm trying to get some paintijng done before my furniture arrives. The first room done is the "John" room - the room I'm fixing up for my grandson's visit. I've also finished the art studio, and gotten a first coat on the guest bedroom and part of the living/dining area. Today I plan to finish the guest room and do the master bedroom.

My art supplies are all on the moving truck. It will be fun to set up my art studio when the truck finally arrives, which is scheduled, so far, for either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Another Baby Quilt

While up in Canada this past week I finished up another baby quilt I was working on, for the son of the fellow who was our caretaker for many years. He is the same age as my son, and they played together as kids when we would go up to Canada. Kevin's little boy Keaton is 7 months old and I've been wanting to get this quilt to him. This was a challenge, made from odds and ends and scraps as so much of my fabric was away in storage. The cat in the middle is a single piece of printed fabric, and it seemed appropriate since Kevin and his wife are fond of their cats. I just needed to find other fabrics in the right colors that I could use to expand upon the central cat. I was pretty lucky in finding scraps that incorporated the right colors, though the quilt still wound up a good bit smaller than the one I made for my grandson.

But I did get it finished while I was up there, and left it with Kevin's mom to get to him.

Memory Lane

When I was cleaning out my attic a few weeks ago I came across this watercolor I painted 30 years ago for my son, when he was small. What a shame it had a pad or something sitting on it and the paper got unevenly colored, as it would be fun to have it reframed for my little grandson!

Rosaries

Today my son converted to Roman Catholicism. It was a very moving service, but as a lifelong Congregationalist I was hardly sure what the proper etiquette is to celebrate an adult's conversion to Catholicism. Clearly here's where google is your friend and you can find the answer to almost anything, including appropriate gifts! The Big Three seemed to be crucifixes, Catholic Bibles, and rosaries. My Congregational blood balked a bit at the crucifix idea. A Catholic Bible would surely have been a possibility, specially to a reader like me - but at the 11th hour I realized I had no clue where to purchase one. But a rosary? Heck, that was something I could make myself from my supply of beads. And google, of course, is more than helpful in telling you HOW to make a rosary.

Of course the formal rosaries all have a medal of some sort on them, and rosary medals are not the sort of thing my art and craft supplies contain. But never fear, various google sites told me that for a beaded rosary a larger and/or different sort of bead could be used in place of the medal, and beads were something I had. So I set about making rosaries! Actually I made several, but finally ended up deciding I liked this one the best, so this is the one I gave to my son.

But I still have two others I made that I think are perfectly nice. And to top things off, using shorter pieces of the wiring I had leftover, I also made two Anglican rosaries. I quite enjoy doing them. I still adore my pastels, but making prayer beads is quite satisfying as well. These are the two other Catholic rosaries I made as well as the Anglican ones.