Friday, August 29, 2008

Door-to-door art

Remember a few months ago when I blogged about buying a couple of paintings from a door-to-door salesman?

Well, the paintings are both oil on canvas and were sold to us as unstretched canvases (with no frame). Never have I been more glad that The Engineer worked in a framing shop when he was a teenager. He bought stretcher bars online and did a fantastic job stretching the canvases himself. So it's time for the great unveiling of our door-to-door art....

This one is the smaller one; it's 20" x 24". We haven't hung it on the wall yet. This was The Engineer's pick; I really like, it, but it doesn't particularly "speak to me".


The second one is big (35" x 47") and definitely my favorite. It's hanging high above the stairs (hence the distorted perspective of the picture). The leaves on the top half are real, and other textured elements, such as string and corrugated cardboard, are also utilized. The warm colors and botanical aspect just, well, make me feel good.



They both go really well in our house, and as odd as it was to buy paintings from a traveling art student, I'm pretty glad he showed up at our house that day. These original paintings cost us a whole lot less than if they'd been non-original, signed & numbered prints from a well-known artist.

They're paintings that we like to look at--and that, not the name of the artist, is the most important quality a piece of art can have.

5 comments:

beckiwithani said...

I really like those! I'd be willing to get something from that guy if the price is right.

Did you get his contact info? You should ask his permission to post it here -- I can't imagine he'd argue with the free advertising. Or does he maybe even have a website?

C. Beth said...

Becki, I know we got his card, but I'll have to ask Jason if he knows where it is. If I find it I'll post the info here. I don't think there's a website. He actually works with a few other artists, and they work on the paintings together, each doing whatever they are best at. I'd prefer the painting be done by just one person, but as long as we like it, that's okay. They do quite a bit of reproduction work too. No thanks--I buy a Van Gogh print before I'd buy a Van Gogh copy. The large one was $285, and the small was supposed to be $95 but he gave it to us for $45 since we bought the large one. Pretty great. Jason bought the frames & special pliers for $81.16, and he also bought a staple gun--not sure how much that was, but it's a manual one so it probably was pretty cheap. So the stretching was probably under $100 for both, which is great. (Gotta love free labor.)

Our Scoop said...

Very nice! I really like those. Great job Jason!! And Beth, I love the new pic of you on the sidebar. Very beautiful!

LEstes65 said...

Woah! Those are GORGEOUS. And I have a couple of framing jobs for Jason - if he has the eye still.

Becky said...

Very nice!