My grandmother was a painter. She mainly used oils. She taught us to paint one year on vacation. The first lesson: always use uneven numbers. Paint five flowers, not four. She taught me symmetry and color mixing. I was naturally creative, so painting was easy for me. My first picture was a vase of pink daisies. My second, a barn overlooking the ocean. I probably painted that around the age of twelve. I decided today to share my collection of paintings.
Gana died when I was 23. It wasn’t until my late forties that I picked up a brush again
Once I relearned how to start with the background and then layering, I didn’t look back. Literally. I would always be way ahead of the class teacher. I found that I really enjoyed the whimsical look.
At a scrapbooking weekend, I saw a gal making cool canvas art with told nail polishes. I decided to try my hand at it. Then it needed washi tape as a border.
This one just didn’t look finished until I added the pearls, some glitter, a butterfly, and washi tape around the edges. When will she stop?
This one is special to me. Summer 2020, my 10 year old grandson looked at me after doing a science project and said, very matter of factly, “Grammi, next week, can we paint Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night?” I am sure I raised my eyebrows as I responded non chalantly, “sure”. I then proceeded to ask him how he knew about that. He told me that his advanced class was studying Art. Okay then. I bought canvases and paints (had the brushes), and when next week came, we looked up the painting online. As we browsed to find a good enough copy to print so we had guidelines, we saw tons of variations. Our granddaughter chose one with a house in it, our grandson chose one labeled Starry Dog and I chose one labeled Starry Cats. Of course, the painting wasn’t complete without a little glitter glue applied to the stars!
I hope you have enjoyed your free tour of the Museum d’Grammi. Maybe this will inspire you to pick up some paint and brushes and have some fun during the grey days of winter! Which it is here, but may not be wherever you live.
I would also like to thank Colorful Sisters for inspiring me to share my creativity by sharing theirs! https://colorfulsisters.com/
An Ordinary Life 