Cassie Marie: June 2011

Favorites: Andrew Wyeth

I've been missing the library at NIU lately. There was a HUGE art book selection, and a lot of days if I was feeling a bit stuck in my studio work or if I just had some time to kill between classes I would go in, grab a huge pile of books, and get lost for a few hours. There was also always a huge pile of books in my studio. NIU was pretty lax with overdue fees, so I could pick my favorites and keep them for the entire semester.

Luckily, I found one of them at a used book store over the weekend while hanging out in Sioux Falls with my Inlaws.

Refinishing Project

I'd been searching online for easier ways to refinish furniture after purchasing a desk that had a damaged finish. As you know I'm big into mid-century furniture, and most of the pieces I've bought have had minor damage - watermarks, chips, scratches, etc..
The same was true for this piece:

It is a beautiful solid wood magazine rack that I picked up for $1 - but unfortunately the finish was not so great.
See:

But, I'd been hearing good things about Howard's Restor-a-Finish, so I thought I'd give it a try, and it worked amazingly!
See:

So much better!

I also used Feed-n-Wax to give it that extra glow once I was finished. Honestly, I think I would marry this stuff if I could. I'm going to get a few of the other colors to try on some of my other furniture. This little project would have been a major pain in the butt to refinish - with the Restor-a-Finish it literally took about 15 minutes to apply with 000 grade steel wool, and another 5 minutes for the wax finish.

I thought I'd share my findings with all of you other mid-century or antique fiends out there. :) If you have any questions about it - let me know!

Updating My Website

I've been working hard on updating my art website lately, and I'm about 90% finished - I've just got to work out some small kinks, and it'll be as good as gold. I'd love it if you could stop by and let me know how you like it!

www.cassiemarie.com

I'm also almost finished with the painting I started a few days ago:

At this point I just need to wait for the paint to dry to go back in and add highlights.

Veggie Garden

The veggie garden is doing great - minus a few bunnies who keep eating the lettuces!

{Baby Romaine Lettuce - when I went outside today, this guy was munched down completely - I think I'll be investing in a chicken wire fence.}

{Sage - it is getting huge! We've been cutting off leaves almost every day too!}

{Chives}

{Our front yard Zucchini - One thing I love about our house and neighborhood is that everyone has a veggie garden, so planting zucchini in your front yard isn't frowned upon - not that that would stop me.}

{This is the finished backyard plot - It really helped to remove the sod - we've hardly had any weeds - unlike my garden in Illinois which I had to weed every other day!}

{The first tomato flowers on the cherry tomato plants - I'm really looking forward to having cherry tomatoes, I don't think many of them will survive being eaten straight off of the plant.}

{The first serrano pepper! It's a little lumpy, but it is growing!}

{And last but not least, the bright lights swiss chard - my favorite lettuce because you can harvest from it all summer and fall and it keeps coming back.}

Flower Garden

{Asiatic Lily}

{Bumble Bee}

{The first of the roses}

{Flower Garden - There are two kinds of lilies, black eyed susans, and a few other flowers that haven't bloomed yet.}

{Western Columbine}

Even though I took out some of the flowers, and am going to downsize the flower garden a bit next year, I am enjoying the ones I kept around - especially after getting control of the giant thistles that were everywhere!

Just finished another small painting from our trip to Colorado.
8x8" Oil on Canvas

Studio/Goodies

I've been cranking out these small paintings in between waiting for larger paintings to dry.
While waiting for this under-painting to dry....

... I started an 8x8" landscape painting. I made a brick red/ white under-painting in acrylic because I could paint over it with oil right after it dried.

The painting in progress - I've got the sky and mountains done. When working on these small landscapes I tend to work from the background to the foreground.

And the finished product:

8x8" - Oil on Canvas
I think I'm going to start listing these paintings on Etsy pretty soon, so keep an eye out!

In other news, I got this lovely hand-painted print in the mail from my good friend/ amazing artist Michele Bosak:

I love this piece because it reminds me of my sister Amy who we affectionately call 'Mimi' - who was also a very picky eater. It is getting framed and put in the kitchen.
Michele is an amazing artist, and you should really go check out more of her work at her website:
Michele Bosak
And take a look at her Etsy site:
MimiDoodles

Peony Bouquet from the Garden

I love peonies, they are one of my favorite flowers.

Lucky for us, the previous owners of our house had planted a large mound of them in our backyard. They are just starting to bloom, and I was excited to see that they are a pink/white variety! So I picked a bunch of them along with some lilac blooms and they smell amazing.

It is so nice having fresh flowers in the house.

I also finished this small painting this afternoon:

Simplicity

Sometimes it is good to have a simple and relaxing day. Yesterday was that day for me.
Painting:

Making a terrarium using a thrifted glass container and a tiny plant I found in my yard.

And a simple dinner of Salmon and Red Potatoes.

I'm waiting for corn to be in season so I can do a shrimp/potato/onion/corn boil! Even though it is hot as hell outside, I'm really loving this summer so far. :)

In the Studio

I finally took the time clean out my studio a bit so I could paint without having to maneuver around boxes and random art supplies!

I love oil paint. Isn't that pink the perfect bubble gum pink? Yum. It has been so nice to spend a few solid days working on painting - I feel like I've got my painting mojo back now that the sun is back.

This is the underpainting - a quick study of light and dark. I like to use a tinted canvas - it helps me to quickly lay out the light and dark areas, and forces me to build up thicker layers of paint.