City Folk Homes with neighbors

Neighbors with ______. 

New House Series about City Buildings and 

The People Who Live In Them 

One day I was leafing thru an old folk art book of mine and came across this painting. 

There is something very funny about this, to me.  Maybe it is my quirky sense of humor, but I love this.  Look at all the bottles all over the floor.  This painter had a funny personality.  Notice the broken one to the right. This is an 19th century artist.

I thought wouldn't it be neat to do a series of paintings about  houses with people around the painting doing whatever it is that people do.   

I started to think about my childhood, and our neighbors.  Some of our neighbors brought us cookies and pies, while others didn't mow their grass weekly.  Some of them borrowed milk or flour or sugar.  I lived in town growing up, and we had very close neighbors.  It was fun.  We all had a lot of kids.  Some of the neighbors had 6 children.  "Neighbors with a lot of children..."  

This painting is about "Neighbors who borrow eggs."  

The window in the middle level is painted open in the center in preparation of my lady leaning out to throw the eggs that are being borrowed.  

All the characters in this series will be consistently dressed.  Buildings and trees will vary from painting to painting. 

I love the broken eggs laying on the grass, it puts me in mind of my inspiration piece that I posted above with the broken bottles. 

There she is, hanging out the window.  This is not a farm house in the country like a lot of my paintings illustrate, but is a city house with CITY FOLK! 

I sort of like it in the gold frame but is being painted for Spicher and Co, so I must come up with a reproduction frame.  It might end up in black, but this is what I found as of today. 

I love Jacob Mantel.  This 'folk art' book is opened to one of his characters. He lived around
1810-20

In the end, after living with this painting for a long time, I decided that I wanted a little more action!  Check out the TRICK OR TREAT POST! 

Enjoy. 

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Custom House portrait in American Folk Art Style ~ Post 3

Moving right along! 

This project has been very tedious.  I am just now starting to add what I call my fun whimsey.  I like to take my time at the beginning to to get the details JUST as RIGHT as I possibly can.  Please remember, this is not a photograph, smile 

You can see that I had the roofline all wrong...now fixed! 

I also realized that I missed the dentals that were along the porch arch! Wow, I caught that one just in time! (See photo below).

Here's a shot with the foundation windows drawn in! 

There are a lot of steps to this project that I have not included, but each time I snapped a picture, I was thinking...I am almost done with the house drawing.  Then I would find something else that I missed.  Ha.

Here you can see the dentals added at the porch  

I seriously was thinking about making this a winter scene, but I just couldn't pass up not including that wonderful American Flag.  We are so blessed to live in the United States.  I really took some Artist Liberties with the background.  The little garage sort of reflects their garage, but that is where the likeness ends.

This home definitely sits in a neighborhood.  Once I have the big trees in place it will start to look more shaded and like the reference material, minus the mature trees.  I really want the house to be what stands out and not the landscaping.  I plan to paint in the happy couple, too, in the good old fashioned Americana Style! 

Check back for a few more posts on this one! 

Enjoy! 

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