Painting Exam Room #1 -part one

This is exam room #1 and it was finished with the other two rooms back in January. I put writing about it on the back burner as it seemed kind of repetitive. It is now May and I am amazed that I got all three of these room done in one week! I have to say that sometimes I amaze myself. That happens with sewing too. I look back on projects I have done and sometimes wonder who did it. I don't remember being so impressed at the time, it was just something I was immersed in and wanted to get finished. Does that happen to you, too?




I've decided once again to keep the flowers the same shape for a more unified look, so here is one beginning to emerge in the corner where the garbage can goes.




I especially liked having a waist high table to work from while doing these rooms. I covered the exam tables with a clean plastic dropcloth and lots of newspaper and was able to set my stuff out for easy reach and organization.




The corners are always "interesting" to do as I have to climb up on a ladder and pretend I am firmly planted on the ground. I don't like being up at the ceiling. And besides, it's hot up there!




Three big flowers are the backdrop for the parents' chair and the Tree of Life branches are beginning to float down from the corner. It is gradually wrapping itself all over the office, just as Mother nature makes things grow out more and more as time goes by. By the time I get the branches to meander throughout this whole office, it will be time to move because they plan to knock this old building down in about three years.

If I were anybody else I'd probably stop painting all of this and wasting my time for something that is soon going to be destroyed. However, I'm not Michaelangelo, so it really doesn't matter does it?

Coffee Room Table - in place

Table in place, in the office, with an original poster given as a gift to us when we opened our first office back in 1979. The colors are only slightly faded, but it works nicely with this table.



The table had to be bolted together, so I laid it down on an old quilt and went to work.



It bolted together nicely and you can see that I didn't even bother to paint the underneath part of this table. I usually do paint the underside of things since everything I've done so far can tip over. It's like wearing a slip. It's got to be just a pretty as the showy part. However, I really doubt that this table is going to be tipped anytime soon.

Here it is with the office chairs. ugh. Those chairs have got to go! Time for another trip to the "Wood You" store for something to paint that will complement the table. This stuff just doesn't end, does it?

Painting Glass - a new hobby

After completing the yellow table for the office, I wanted to put something on it that was useful, so I painted up matching salt and pepper shakers for the table. This is them. Very cute. Easy to do too. I use Liquitex Glossies, a high gloss acrylic enamel paint that is great for glass. After painting, just let it set for 24 hours, then heat set it for 45 minutes at 325 degrees. Let it cool down for several hours in the oven and wallah! After washing the items again, they are ready to perk up your kitchen (or office) and use on a daily basis.

I had a butter dish in my closet that was so boring, I never used it. For years I just put the butter on the plastic holder that came with the refrigerator and that was that. NO MORE! Now I have a fantatic piece of art that sits in its' hallowed shelf in the refrigerator door and is a joy to take out and use.
My eyes really like color.

Painting the Coffee Room Table

This is what I learned about myself today.

I like high contrast color.





Now you would think that I would know this about myself by this time. I mean even when I was a teen, all I ever felt comfortable wearing was a black top with a white bottom.

The contrast made me feel comfortable, no matter what. Okay, so maybe I was subconsciously looking for balance, but I know when it all started.

It was a black cotton top and it was room enough to just pull over my head. No buttons. No sleeves. And, it had the most beautiful 2 inch black cotton lace edging that I had ever seen. I loved ironing it.

The bodice had darts and was semi-fitted giving me the appearance of perfect emerging breasts. The top was gently gathered, empire waisted and long enough to cover the waist band of my shorts if I was standing up straight. It was just a cunning little blouse.

I wore it the summer I was 14, the summer I was 15 and the summer I was 16 years old. I don't know what ever happened to it, but today's painting brought back the memory sharp and clear when I was trying to decide what to do with the top of the table I was painting for the coffee room at the office.

I had already primed the bare wood with Kilz and painted the top with white and yellow high gloss enamel so that the top was streaked with the two colors.

I loved it as it was.

From a distance it was cheerful and had a natural movement that spoke to my heart.


For two weeks it sat in my garage/studio waiting for a decision. At this point though, it looked too much like my kitchen table and I wanted to try something new, even if I had to force it. What to do?

I tried several things using chalk to try out designs on the glossy paint. Did I want something balanced and geometric? Should I use some stamped designs?

What about blocks of color or irregular shapes that would incorporate the colors of the table legs?



Do you like the legs? A base coat of Kilz, a coat of yellow and then another color dry brushed on just enough to leave hints of the yellow underneath. Then, just to jazz it up a bit, I added some stripes so that each leg has four colors and lots of movement going all the way around.

I was happy to paint this table in parts right out of the box. I didn't have to bend over once to get to a hard to reach spot.

But, grrr, I just couldn't decide what to do. My stomache just wouldn't let me settle!

Question? "If I were me, what would I like?"

Answer: "If I were me, I would paint big simple flowers and I'd use the complementary color, purple. "

High contrast!

Now I could relax and finish this thing.



Purple is the complementary color to yellow. Put them together and they both sing!









The side view shows the black and white strips and some of the color that I've painted on each of the four sides.

It's going to look so good when I take it to the office and put it all together.
I'll post a photo after I've put on a few coats of polyurethane



In this photo I've slipped the legs into the holes just to get an idea of how it will look.

Is this cool or what?

If I were me, I'd say, " I just love this thing!"

Painting Exam Room #2 - last pix

Once again, I cannot believe it has been so long since I posted anything on this little blog.
Being the office manager is taking over my life!!
I think sitting in front of a computer all day long isn't exactly encouraging me to come back here a compose some prose about my creative stuff. I tend to need a lot of down time after work and can only paint or sew or do other crafty things on the weekend, and after a satifying day of getting paint under my fingernails, I am not in the mood to compute!

Oh well, such is life. Not being able to be crafty as much as I use to makes it more sweet when I can pry open a paint can or plug in my Janome computer/sewing/embroidery machine.

The above photo shows how I am protecting my art work. A piece of plexiglas on the wall prevents the chair from making its' mark or a head of hair from darkening my flower.



The main wall is protected too, from kicking feet and curious sticky hands. The plastic goes up about two feet and is working out just great.

I still have the third room to show you, so I will try to be more diligent in the coming days.

Meanwhile, go outside and enjoy the first days of Spring. It is glorious here in south Florida, not hot, not humid, not rainy. Just right.

Exam Room #2 - part 2

This is the best I could do to take a photo of just the wall art. The room doesn't have much back up space for a photo taken straight on.



This is the computer corner and cabinets. The branches of the tree of life continue to move through out the office. Again, there is a bug high up in the leaves for the patient to focus on during the eye exam. This time it's a green cricket, but you'll just have to take my word for it.




This is the corner over the door with a lady buy in the tree branches. I just remembered last night that I hadn't painted any apples on this part of the tree! Guess I have to get the ladder out again. More color would be good, too.




These palm tree fronds are highly stylized. Sometimes they look like a propeller or a fan more than a tree. This is where the viewer can use imagination to piece this fantasy space all together. If you can have a pink elephant, you can certainly have all the rest of it.

Painting Exam Room #2 -Pink Elephant

This is Exam Room 2. The doorway trim is painted a high gloss purple and it has a lion of Judah mezuzah on the lower right hand side. The carefully written scroll of Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and 11:13-21 is curled inside. A reminder that all we see and do are sacred.

I really enjoyed painting this pink elephant with the bird hitching a ride upon her back. Many shades of color were made from my tube of magenta just by adding water to the acrylic paint. The White wall has an egg shell finish and is rough, making it easy to get variations in color.



Purple cone flowers were my choice for this room, a complement to the color purple around the inside and outside of the door frame. Even the bee has purple stripes.



The opposite wall also has the same flower. Nice and big, towering above the trash can and exam table. Here you can see some of the brush work I did. I used my very favorite scruffy chip brush to make the brush work stand out on the elephant and sky.

Painting Exam Room #3 - part 3

I wish I had taken a photo of the mural before I put the table back, but it was 7 o'clock at night and I was too tired to even think about it. This exam table happens to be red, so painting the border the same color was a good choice. As you can see, this childlike theme is very much like an 8 or 10 year old's style of art (I hope), so getting straight lines was not what I wanted to do. When I walk by the room now, I often think of it as a larg quilt with soft fabric borders floating against that white, white wall.





Here we have the lady bug in the opposite corner. It's made of plastic and is about 3 inches around, so it is easy to see. Until I painted the tree branches and leaves, she was just hanging out there all by herself. I hope she feels a little more at home now.



As you can see, there is a lot of stuff in this corner of the room. It really does help to have a lady bug in the corner when the doctor is examining your eyes. We have a "paperless" office. Everything goes into the computer instead of paper charts. It's a nice system for us. No one has to pull files and we don't have to worry about storage. Since the office is rather small, it's kind of necessary. Also, pulling up information about a patient is only a click away and is immediately available.
Well, immmediately available as long as the Server is happy. The Server and I are on good terms most days. Most days. Some days she has me going in circles. Like people, some days are better than others, so I greet her in the morning with a smile, a pat on her plastic monitor and hope that is enough to keep her content.



To complete the helpful image trio, I painted a star on the ceiling over the exam table, so when Dr. K is pushing on soft bellies, there is something overhead to see. It's amazing how much it helps to have a known object overhead instead of just ceiling tiles. I've been a patient being wheeled about on a gurney in a hospital a few times, and nothing is as frightening as looking at the world from that most helpless angle. My eyes were always looking for a comforting symbol, something familiar. Well, yes, what I was looking for was my husband, but he couldn't always go into the O.R. with me. Sigh.



In order to protect my work from sticky hands and kicking feet, we had a large piece of Plexiglas installed over the lower portion of the wall. It extends below the table pad and runs all the way across the painting, so keeping it clean will be easy. There is another piece on the chair wall to protect the flowers. People tend to lean back and rest their head against the wall while sitting down, so that plastic is as high as the highest flower petal.

So far, everybody who has seen this little multicolored zebra has loved his arrival. I do, too.

Painting Exam Room #3 - part 2

Finally!One room painted! This is the view patients see as they peer into the room. The doorway is painted a high gloss turquoise and has previously been referred to as "the blue room". There is a Noah's Ark Mezuzah on the right hand side of the door frame, low enough for most children to touch if they wish to, before entering the room.


This wall was the easiest to do, I must say. Big flowers, a simple design and several colors of red and magenta on my brush made it easy. I just chalked simple outlines of the flowers on the wall, placed the chair to make sure they would gather around it nicely, put on my painting apron and just started.


This is the opposite wall. There are a couple of faucets jutting out of the wall used by the previous tenant, for I don't know what, so I just ignored them. Notice that the flower patals are shaped differently, but are the same color as the ones on the opposite wall. I have decided now that I really don't like the effect. The shape just seems lonely all by itself, not being like the rest of the flowers in the room. Oh well, subconcious thinking sometimes shows up in art. As I did the second and third rooms, I got more "sophisticated" and kept the flower theme tighter.


The corner over the door shows branches extending from the Tree of Life that is in the waiting room. I plan to have the branches flow through out the entire office, unifying the theme.



A closeup of the corner shows a plastic cricket hung on the wall. And, see the leaf jamming its' way into the roo? Neat, huh? My husband tells the kids to look up into the corner at the cricket when he is examining their eyes with an ophthalmascope. It gives them something to focus on when he comes at them with a bright light an inch away from their eye. We all feel a little surprised when doctors do such things.
Might as well have something interesting to see!

Painting Exam Room #3

Since the holidays are over and kids are back in school, we usually have a lull in activity at the office. I decided to use this time to do some more painting because my husband can see patients and use the other two exam rooms without getting backed up.

And besides, one of the mom's said to me, "When are you going to do something with these white walls, Adrian!? It feels so sterile in here!"

sigh.

I know, I know. Painting the walls has been on my mind all year long, but it's been so hard to get enthused about it when I have so much to do and am still learning this job: "office manager". ( is this punctuation correct?)

However, I've also been loathe to do anything because my husband doesn't want too much color on the walls. He needs to see the skin color of his little patients. Colors reflect on skin. If a newborn comes and and he's checking for jaundice, he doesn't want any yellow on the wall, that's for sure. And what about a new patient who comes in with a bad cough. That might mean wheezing and asthma or some other obstructive airway disease. Do you think a whole lot of blue would be good for that situation?
Nope.
So, the question I go over and over is, how can I add color, make it interesting and pretty, but not interfere with the whole purpose of the room, and still keep the very serious doctor happy?

The complaining mom gave me the very solution. She ended her happy tirade with, "Why don't you at least hang up some pictures?!"

"!!!!!!!"

What a great idea! As soon as she said it, I could see it on the wall. A mural. A contained splash of color. Something childlike, as the waiting room walls are. The theme of the Creation continuing on, but in a small space.

Zounds! I think I've got it!!!

Three Knitted Hats

Here we go again. A looonng tiiimmme between posts.
sigh.
Work has been busy, with the days extending into night when I do more office book work from home, leaving me too tired of looking at the computer to even think of it as a tool for fun.

Sheesh, this making a living thing gets to be a drag for those of us who love to craft.

Anyway, enough about that! I did do at least a little something each day that kept my need for color fed, if not satisfied. I decided that knitting was the best way to go as I can sit with my feet up, have mindless TV in front of me and often a kitty in my lap, too.

This rolled brim hat is so soft and easy, I just love the colors and even if I don't wear it now, I can pretend I live in Colorado near our oldest son and his family and keep in on my table ready to grab it as I go out the door into 32 degrees.

Since the colors were really lifting my spirit, I added a little fun fur and made another one to mirror it.
Now I need to find a friend to go shopping with so we can wear these hats together.
My husband wore it to bed one night, but I still think he prefers baseball caps.







And, then there were three! Another favorite color combo. I always think of irises or pansies when I use green and purple together.

These were made using Caron Simply Soft Brites! on size 10 needles, two strands. That makes a nice 4 stitches per inch gauge.

Cast on 80 stitches and knit for about 1 3/4 inches.

Change colors and increase by 10 stitiches.

Knit for about 7 1/2 or so inches from the roll (not the bottom of the knitting, the bottom of the roll) and then, decrease on the next knit row.

I decrease the 10 stitches just doing knit two together every 7th stitch.

Purl.
The next row is knit 2, knit 2 together.
Purl.
Then knit 1, knit 2 together.
Purl.
Finish up doing knit 2 together all the way across.
Purl.
Repeat the last decrease row until you have anywhere from 10 to 5 stitches left and tie it up.

Blanket stitch the back seam and add some kind of embellishment to the top.

Then, if you are like me, you can display your colorful handywork on your favorite unused space.


Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s a kitchen table. Since our youngest son moved out, we eat in front of the TV, so this table, as beautiful as it is, and yes, I painted this, too) hardly gets used as much as it should be.

Sigh.

Changing the Hallway

The hallway is the first thing patients see when they come in from the waiting room and I wanted to make it colorful, but had to get something done quickly.

So, the answer is beautifully colored, high gloss doorways.







It looked like this for quite awhile. White everywhere with a cool black and white floor.










And this is back to last year when we first signed the lease.

The walls were pink and the floor covered in a gray carpeting. The first thing to go was all the pink. I like pink, but it was so very '80's!

Buckets of white paint in a washable egg shell finish covered every inch of the office, making it feel clean and new again.

It's a year later now and I have just got to get more painting done. The walls are looking scuffed and abused and not so very pristine anymore.

sigh.

Painting The Waiting Room - part 4

The rainbow wall. It came out great, even if the colors are upside down.





Every garden needs a dragonfly, and lady bug on a big red flower.









The dragonfly and tulips look oh so childlike and you can see Eva our receptionist and Penney, our nurse in the window where patients sign in. If you look carefully you can see a butterfly painted over a door bell. Kids like to push on it and because of all the paint on it, it rings and rings and rings and then we get a good belly laugh - especially from 2 year olds!

Painting The Waiting Room - part 3

This is the right hand side of the waiting room with the receptionist opening in the wall. I removed the partition, so anyone coming in can feel they will be noticed right away.




It was fun drawing the arc for the rainbow. And coloring it in with many shade of each color was the best part of the project for me. A few weeks later, someone told me that I had the colors upside down.

Seems to me I did a good job of being an 8 year old artist, just like I wanted.




Painting big goofy flowers is something I've always wanted to do, but never had a legal place to do it. Now, with the rent we pay, I don't have any problem at all making marks on any and all walls that we see everyday.

Painting The Waiting Room - part 2

Adam and Eve are forever entwined around the force that started it all. Love. At least that's what I believe. Eden wasn't a trap, it was and is such an incredible place of beauty that it's no wonder Eve just had to find out about it. Curiosity is what leads us out of that which is known and into the unknown. Ask any artist.



My desire for these walls was to paint them in such a way that it would look like a child had used crayons on the bumpy paper teachers give you at school. I found a way to work with cheap "chip" brushes using very little paint to get the effect. In fact, I absolutely had to hold myself back at times, because my grown up me wanted to perfect the images too much. Sometimes it's very hard to go back to the 8 year old mind and body.



Now you can see why I only painted three flowers by the door. All those chairs! I was still working on this and patients had to have somewhere to sit. Sheesh!

The color of the sky is purple indicating night and the unknown, the unseen, the moon making light that helps us to see, but we're not alway sure of the way because so much is still hidden. Like curiosity. It urges forward movement, but makes no promises about the outcome.

Don't you think G-d is surprised everyday?