RMW Ramblings

  Josephine Spring Josephine Garden and Fountain are a major attraction in Wilmington's Brandywine Park, especially when the cherry trees are in bloom.  They were donated in 1933 by Col. J. Ernest Smith as a memorial to his late wife, Josephine Tatnall Smith Here is my Josephine Spring, acrylic/mixed media on canvas. .Happy vernal equinox and welcome to spring!

  Night Flight

  Face to Face This just finished, Face to Face, acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 inches.

  On the Avenue On the Avenue is a 2006 glimpse of Wilmington's Delaware Avenue just west of the CSX (ex-B&O) railroad bridge.  Old familiar businesses are here such as the Del Rose Restaurant and Kelly's Logan House.  The street is populated by an assortment of characters. After I painted this scene I composed a sequel, The Morning After.   For On the Avenue  I first did a line drawing without the figures which I scanned and saved digitally.  I then painted it in watercolor, then scanned and saved again.  I painted the figures individually and in small groups, scanned them, and positioned them in my digital copy of the watercolor of the buildings in Photoshop. For The Morning After I converted my scan of the initial line drawing to a purple-on-purple scene, then drew/painted the bag lady, trash cans, etc. which I scanned and positioned in Photoshop as before. While I have never done true digital art, I have frequently used Photoshop to size, co...

  Cork Coasters One more re-use of the star pattern that bordered our dining room in the late 1800s, stenciled onto cork coasters.   An earlier cork coaster project, these coaster sets were stenciled with a deer head decorated for Christmas, presents for my brothers. They remember the mounted deer head in the living room that our mother decorated for the holidays, a tradition continued by my brother Anson and his wife who now own the deer head.         More recently I hand painted this set of floral-themed coasters as a present for our granddaughter-in-law who shares a birthday with me.      

The Dining Room Stencil   Here's the dining room window in the process of being converted to a display niche in 1966. When the old wallpaper was stripped we found the remains of an old stencilled border from the days this room was a kitchen, late 1800s.   Here's a detail of the stencil.  I have since used that pattern in other projects.     When we replaced the hood over our kitchen cook-top the new hood left a four inch gap over the Corian backsplash. I filled this gap with a metal-faced panel I made, stenciled with a scaled down version of the old border. A nod to the history of our house.    

  The Dining Room Niche Our brick house was built in about 1882 and soon after, frame additions were made and the original kitchen became the dining room. When we bought the house in 1965 a window which was originally on an exterior wall remained, now opening into a pantry.   We had the sash removed and the pantry side closed, retaining the casing on the dining room side, creating a niche we use for changing displays. Here's one of my Christmas paintings and a painting by Mary now in the niche.