Art on the Cheap

Painting a Day blogs have been the subject of more than a few articles recently. Touted as a cheap "in" to purchasing original art, the blogs feature postcard sized paintings done in one sitting (1 - 3 hours in most cases). The subjects range from simple household items to outdoor scenes, most accompanied by the artist's description of their inspiration. Many of the paintings are quite stunning, like this egg by Duane Keiser. Keiser's works are available for sale on e-bay and sell for $100 and up.

Other Painting a Day Artists:

Elin Pendleton

Julian Merrow-Smith

Karen Jurick

Weekend Excursion

I found this on the Shop Better Here Blog:

Christmas in July

The weather outside is frightful, all right -- frightfully hot - but there are only 172 shopping days until you know what. Whether you have holiday gift-buying in mind or not, stop by the Texas Pottery and Sculpture Guild’s 15th annual Christmas in July sale to browse through a variety of one-of-a-kind works from more than 30 clay artists, including functional pottery pieces, sculptures and objets d’art. The sale starts Friday night with a “meet the artists” reception where you can meet the artists and continues on Saturday at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. Don’t forget to register at the door for a chance to win a piece by acclaimed Acoma-style potter Debbie Brown.

Norma Cavazos
* Friday from 5 to 9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center, 1300 Gendy (just east of the Kimbell Art Museum), Fort Worth. 817-738-1938 and 817-964-0152.

* Free admission.

Shakers Shake it Up

This is a photo of yellow trim in a Shaker home from one of the aforementioned posts on Apartment Therapy.

Trend Watch: No More White Trim

I'm tired of white trim. When we bought our home last year, I dreamed of repainting the living room doors, built-ins, and trim in a chartreuse. After a brief foray into trim painting in our extra bedroom (we use it as an office, and the teal wall color we chose made the white trim look sad), I have realized this is a job best left to the professionals or the infinitely patient.

Our home was built in the 50s, and though I hate to admit this, the trim paint on our bedroom door has a few chips and cracks. Underneath several coats of white, I can see that the original trim color was a grey-green. Clearly, trim used to be the domain of more than white and cream.

A few weekends ago, we trekked out to Stonebridge Ranch to take a look at new homes. We found a charming neighborhood of craftsman-style homes by Darling, which offered the option of taupe trim. It looked great on the vintage-style mouldings. I've also recently run across several posts about colored trim on Apartment Therapy. Doors and trim are meant to be decorative. Unless it's a part of the room design, there's no reason they have to be white. Let's hope this is the beginning of the end of dull trim.