Pollyanna Goes Shopping!

Gallery Walk



For many years I held an open studio at the beginning of December, in conjunction with a local Craft Studio Tour. This was a several day event, and because my house WAS my studio and the art WAS the walls as well as what was hanging on them, it meant that my whole house was on show. In the beginning I tried to clean the place up, but after a few years I let the perfectionism relax and the house just be the exhibit, messy studios and all! So it was that when earlier this year a viewer of this blog commented that she would love to see some more of my ART, I thought I might try to hold an Open Studio in my blogland world. Before you get your hopes up that I will be showing you ALL my studios here in my new house, I will tell you they are too messy and NOT ready for showing! That will have to come another day. But to make amends for making you wait, I will show you ONE wall of my new house. This is the wall where I hang the Christmas Cards I have drawn over the years. Every year I draw a picture that I send out to family and friends, and over time it became a scrap book of the family history, because I always drew from what had happened during that year. The drawings started out as pen and ink, and eventually added watercolor paint as color reproduction became affordable. These are each 8.5 by 11 inches in dimension. There are now more than 25 of them..... they continue on another wall. Sorry about the poor lighting..... poke the pictures to have a closer look!

And then, just to make amends further for leading you on about seeing ART.... I will take you with me as Pollyanna goes Christmas shopping! She has heard of a new bunch of shops that have opened up with some Galleries she wants to check out! They are in a new up and coming part of town and there is a sweet little park nearby.

Pollyanna stops to have a look. Should she walk through the snow to see the little pond? She's NOT wearing her snow boots!

The first shop she comes to is "Serendip Gallery". It has Old World paintings on display.

The owner is Will Peters Ott. He is from Europe, of the Switzerland Otts. He has many connections in Europe and imports fine art for his Gallery.

Pollyanna immediately starts thinking of filling the walls of the Lovely Old Dollhouse with Old World portraits.

Mr. Ott is very charming and knows a great deal about all his art.

Pollyanna is particularly taken with a couple of portraits of beautiful women from long ago.
(Just in case you were curious, I painted these MANY years ago when I was in my teens. They are not entirely original, as I was copying from actual portraits that were in a volume of costume history I owned. They are acrylic on cardboard with a varnish coating. The frames were also carved by me.)

Will Peters Ott also owns the shop next door "Otts and Ends", where he displays antique furniture and textiles.

He is only too happy to show Pollyanna around this Gallery as well.
Pollyanna sees many things she would love to buy.... but she really is trying to do some Christmas shopping! So perhaps she will be back.

The next shop is "Aileens Basement". It is owned by Mr. Aileen. It is not as "high end" as Will's shop. It has a little bit of everything from old bathroom fixtures to old bicycles.

Pollyanna immediately spots an old dollhouse in one corner.... should she get that for Annabelle? Is Annabelle old enough for such a fine old dollhouse? Hmmm... she will have to think about this some more. Perhaps she will be back.

The shop next door is run by Mr. Aileen's wife, Sherry. It is called "The Jewel Box" and is a Gallery catering to modern, little known, but perhaps up and coming artists. Pollyanna is intrigued.

The space has such a clean and polished look after the mess next door!

Sherry introduces herself and explains that the current artist she is showing is a multi-disciplined artist. She has only watercolors to show in this exhibit, but knows this artist also does murals, and furniture and sculpture.....

Pollyanna wants to see every painting.

It seems this artist has traveled in foreign lands!

This one is from Scotland....

And Switzerland......

And very recognizeably Greece!




And Sherry explains that this artist is also known to have painted directly in BOOKS!

In fact, she has one on exhibit here if you want to take a peek.....

Pollyanna says "You mean she painted these directly in the book?"

Here, have a closer look!

And another page......

(This book was bought in Florence, Italy, a blank book. I painted on some of the pages, intending it to be a sort of sampler, with examples to use in later works, a scrap book of sorts.)








And of course, a few more paintings.... this one from Scotland again.

(These paintings are each about 2 inches square, and were painted in another small book that I carried with me on my travels. These framed versions are photocopies of the originals.)

And another painting, slightly larger than the others....... Pollyanna really likes this one....


(Sorry about all the reflections on the glass... they are hard to photograph...)

And yet another, this one a bit different from the others.

Pollyanna wishes she had enough money to buy some of these..... and somewhere to hang them!

She will have to come back to this Gallery again after Christmas!





When she steps outside again, it has grown dark... the days are so short at this time of the year! But the lights are lit and the shops all look so festive!













She passes Will Ott's Gallery and waves to him! She will be back!

So dear readers, I have not shown you my studios... but I have shown another glimpse of my miniature ART. Some of this was intended for the dollhouse world, and some was not..... and it only occurs to me now that some of it might work well in the dollhouse world!








And now I will confess that today I had INTENDED to work on drawing this year's Christmas Card! It is on the drawing table and already started, but NOT YET DONE!







And instead I have PLAYED with my dolls!

This is a shot of the set-up in my basement...... about the only place left in my house where there is room for a row of shops - tucked into cubby hole shelves!











It is dark as Pollyanna heads home past the snow covered park...... she thinks about the star-filled sky and Three Kings setting out to take gifts to a new born babe....

She still has a LOT of shopping left to do!

Pollyanna Goes Shopping

Christmas Trees

Take Two The trees have finally been decorated! Above is the small tree in my upstairs studio which has the white lights. As you can see, I cram a lot of ornaments onto my trees! (These are the 1:1 scale trees). And below is a picture of the tree in my downstairs dining room/studio which has the colored lights. I know the lighting in the photo doesn't show the colors very well....

The tree stands in the doorway between the studio and the sitting room... my whole house is tiny so it is right next to the Lovely Old Dollhouse too.

This picture is taken in the afternoon as the light is fading (what little light there was on this stormy icy/rainy day!) But there is enough light to show you a few of my ornaments that I have made over the years.... if you don't think you will be bored....

Many MANY years ago when I set up my first Christmas tree in my first apartment away from home, I made some blown eggs for ornaments and painted them as some of my favorite story book characters.

This one below is the little mouse in Beatrice Potter's "The Taylor of Gloucester".

And this one is the little hedgehog "Mrs. Tiggy Winkle".

Another bunch of ornaments I made in those LONG AGO years is a series of dolls made from wooden clothespins.... the kind you used to use to hang washing out to dry before the days of clothes dryers! Below is a young lady that I think of as from the era of Jane Austen. She is a little bit plain. These dolls have pipe cleaners covered in felt for arms and I never managed to make their hands as this was before the days of Sculpey!

And this one is dressed in a costume from one of the Cantons of Switzerland. I was trying to make costumes from all over the world, and many different eras. She is carrying a basket of flowers that sort of hides part of her dress! (These dolls are about 3.5 inches tall, so they are smaller than dollhouse scale by a good bit).

And this one is a Geisha from Japan.

The fan is painted by me.... made from paper and toothpicks!

And an Eskimo Lady from the Farthest North, all clad in fur.

This young lad is a Lapplander. (Alas, I never made the Reindeer!)

This one is Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

He was a very famous leader of a Native American Tribe from the time of the late nineteenth century when some of the Western part of North America was still Native American Land.
Alas, the feathers that were originally part of his headdress have fallen apart over the years.

This one is a soldier. A Redcoat, no less!

Perhaps he was one of the characters in a Jane Austen novel?

This one is Marie Antoinette in her panniers and her very tall hair!

She is NOT happy... perhaps she knew what was in store for her?

(Or maybe I just had a bad face painting day!)

And this gentleman is her escort..... but he is NOT the Dauphin!

It is hard to see, but he has a lovely felt tricorne hat and a tiny rapier made from a toothpick and brass wire for a handle!

And this one is Queen Elizabeth the first of England. (In case you could not tell!)

The tiny lace on her collars is made by me.... crocheted from sewing thread!

Another type of ornament I have made more recently is what I call my "snowball" ornaments.

They are hollow shells made from paper mache with tiny worlds assembled inside them. The "snowballs" are about four inches in diameter, so the figures inside are tiny.

Below is one that shows a Nativity made from resin figures that I bought... they are each about one inch tall. I painted the sky and added stars of glitter.....

These are still fairly crude and not really "finished" the way I would like.....

This one just shows a winter woodland scene with a moonlight on a frozen pond and an owl made from a button!

I have made some others of these "snowballs" but will show them another time.

Because, by now you MUST be wondering if I am EVER going to get to the minis at all?

Well, rest assured! The Big trees are not the only ones that have been decorated! But first I must tell you that I have not made any of these ornaments myself. (I hope you are not disappointed!) SOME year I will have the time to make by hand the tiny ornaments for the dollhouse tree. But this year I am content to dig through those boxes of dollhouse furniture that have been packed away, because SOMEWHERE is a pile of little ornaments that I bought Oh SO many years ago and hid in the Someday Cupboard house! I had ALMOST forgotten about them! But I found them and they are sweeter than I had ever remembered!

Just LOOK how tiny these glass balls are!

(I have added a tiny brass wire for hanging).

These ornaments came three to a packet... made by Westrim Crafts.

I bought a half dozen or so. Each ornament is different.





And here are a couple of shiny brass ornaments! I love the little reindeer!

And these tiny icicles are made of glass!!

So I carefully unwrapped all these tiny treasures and hung them with tiny brass wires on the tree.








This is what it looks like with all the ornaments added.
(There was also a string of beads with resin figures attached which I wound around the tree.)

And here it is in the living room of the Lovely Old Dollhouse.

Pollyanna thinks it is JUST PERFECT!

She HAS to show it to Sally May and Chip and Annabelle!

And she just can't resist a closer look at all those beautiful decorations!

Here, you can have a closer look too!

I know I never get tired of pulling out all those ornaments every year!

And then I just sit and look and look and look!

Christmas Trees