The Hobbit Inspired Home ~ Paint Part Friday Week 5 ~ April 15th 2011

I'm submitting this Artist Conk illustration for this week's Paint Party Friday Meet ~ Week 5.

This art piece was an ideal piece to work with while sitting by the living room window pondering on the days that had unfolded. Unfortunately April 11/2011 will be one date I will always remember as a dark and dreary day that woke me in the early morning hours foreboding me something bad was to come . My mom had to admit her partner of 16 years in hospital, his cancer vengefully returned.The prognosis.....not very much time.

To continue on the the Dark Sea was out of the question; I just couldn't and so I decided to work on something I had more control over, actually any sort of art or blogging and such was quite difficult this week. Today my hubby goes in for eye surgery and then maybe we as a family might get a chance for some quite time and enjoy the Spring weather. So for now this is it....Hope you like it.

These are a few of my three dimensional natural canvas artist tree conks or shelf mushrooms I gathered in the wood some time ago for use in painting, pyrography, etching and sculpting fairy homes.

Usually when these are harvested you must give them a drying period of a minimum of two months.These have been dried for some years now. Then I applied gesso and sketched my design in pencil before using the wood burning tool.

Last week I decided I wanted to try my hand at creating a fairy's door on the natural canvas using a wood burning gun ( pyrography) .

As I was designing the door my daughter said it reminded her of Bilbo Baggin's home in the Shire

from "Lord of the Rings". After viewing some pics I realized she was right but my windows were not complete circles , the door's knob wasn't in the middle of the door and I had placed a spiral rhinestone window at the top of the door with a tiny silver heart beneath it; either way I think it could pass for both a Fae's or Hobbit's home....what do you think?

I placed a daffodil in a pot by the door; Hobbit's are partial to green and yellow and to us humans Daffodils are a symbol of Spring and Hope.

I'm not sure if I'll paint the illustration; I'll leave that decision to the end of the week and get some feed back from the Paint Party Friday participants. If I do paint it, I think I'll use pen and inks.

All I have left to do now is add a lantern to the top left of the door where there is a natural hole.Then I will seal the work with a matte varnish in front and a gloss on the back. This particular Artist Conk stays erect naturally so I don't have to support it in any way. Looks quite magical on a book shelf or mantel.

The more I ponder on weather or not to paint it the more I prefer the way it is...natural like found in a wood???

Like trees the rings on the shelf mushroom tells their age.

Just remembered as I was writing this post that I had gathered a entire box full of these mushrooms  but hubby cleaned up the garage and got tried of seeing them lying around so out to the compost they went, now I would like to gather a few more....lesson learned......should never purge art supplies and get to them in a fair amount of time....years are not acceptable....haha!!

p.s. Other visitors are also welcome to give their feed back on weather or not to paint the mushroom.

Check this article out....A really gorgeous Hobbit home:)

http://www.home-designing.com/2009/09/house-that-looks-like-hobbits-home-from-lotr

Until next time try this religion.....Kindness :)

Annabelle