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The Latest Project – Side Table Drawers

by Chavah Kinloch on June 25, 2010

Ahhhhh. First off, I just wanted to say I’m feeling great. Thanks for the lovely comments I got all around the place :)

Next up, my latest project!

So my favourite places to shop down here are Habitat from Humanity and the dump. This particular project was found at the dump.

Shopping second hand down here isn’t like shopping second hand in a big city. Everything is labelled ‘antique’ when really it’s just old and nasty and only worth a dollar. So buying an affordable set of drawers is no easy feat. Not to mention a set of drawers that match.

When I saw them I instantly saw gorgeous side tables for a living room, hallway or bedroom. The shape of them is stunning IMO., and those handles…yes! The drawers are quite big/deep so they’d actually store quite a bit even though there are only two of them. At $15 each, I couldn’t say no.

I’d heard you could actually refurbish veneered wood so I thought this might be a good introduction to working with it.

So here’s the before:

I’m still working on them but here are some during photo’s:

I still have a long way to go with this project but I’m hoping the end result will come out as what I envisage in my head.

I’m working in my dining room.(The whole middle of winter thing.) I’ve completely trashed it.  Well, I’ve gotten paint everywhere, my baby has trashed it lol. I’ll be doing something that requires a lot of elbow grease, like sanding.. and he’ll come along and pull things off my desk and sprawl everything across the floor. Darn him for getting bigger! He’s into absolutely everything right now. I think he believes he’s helping me… but really… lol.

The results for the drawers are great so far and I really, really hope I can pull it together. So keep watch! All going well I’ll have it done by next week… unlike my painting which is STILL waiting on goods to be shipped so I can finish it.

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5 Simple Tips for Photographing Your Artwork

by Chavah Kinloch on April 14, 2010

Here’s a really simple 5 step tutorial for artists on how to photograph their work.
  1. Take photos in natural daylight. This will help the photo show your works truest colours. I find slightly overcast days produce great shots.
  2. Lay the painting flat on the ground. A lot of places will tell you to try and stand it up against something but I only find that helpful for larger pieces. If you do choose to stand it up, try and stand it as straight as possible.
  3. Turn off the flash. This can cause glare, dramatically changing the look of your photo.
  4. Snap your shot, avoid casting any shadows on your image.
  5. Crop your picture so you only have the painting in the final image.

Then you can photoshop to create an effect if you so wish. I’ve only just gotten my hands on this magical invention so I’m still working through fixing some old images.

*** Don’t forget to enter my Pick Your Print Giveaway which runs till May 15th 2010.

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What I’ve Been Up To

by Chavah Kinloch on September 14, 2008

So this week I’ve been working overtime seeing as my husband has been working overtime. He’s been really busy with a project at work so I’ve had to find things to keep myself sane around home. Here’s a look at some of the things I’ve been up to. My lovely hubby helped me with the wall, even if we were doing it at midnight!

This is my daughters seachest. It was a stained wood and was getting uglier by the minute. Every day it ate away at me inside until I just couldn’t bear it anymore. Seriously, this thing was CONSTANTLY on my mind. So on Friday I pulled all her things out of it, dragged and manouvered it outside, sanded it, wiped it and painted it. I got my boys in on the act as well and we made an aftenoon of it. Great fun! I wish I’d taken a before photo. It was reeeeally getting ugly. Originally I had planned on putting some abstract design onto it but when I saw it white, it looked so simple and clean, it felt right to leave it like that for a little girls room.

I saw this material the other week and just had to have it. I wasn’t sure what for at the time but it was too funky to pass up. Last night hubby and I created this masterpiece with it, on an old canvas of mine. I LOVE it!

This is our late night project. On Friday I bought some orange paint and had not only my husband give me ‘the look’ but the man behind the counter as well. He just had to ask “Is this… going on… a wall…??” I grinned and cheerfully responded “Oh definitely. It’s for a wall :) ” I don’t think he knew what to say after that because he just passed me the pottle and walked away lol. I got the idea from a woman in the US who has stripes and was lent some empty frames from a friend for a magazine shoot. I’m glad to say that both hubby and I are THRILLED with the reult and my daughter can’t stop saying how cool it is. This new photo arrangement prompted a huge shuffle of artwork in the house. I’ve you’ve ever been to my house, you know that there’s a lot of paintings to shuffle hehe.

Now THIS was fun. The NZ Art Guild will have a tree at the Bruce Mason Centre for Christmas this year. Underneath will be donations of toys that will go to children that are less fortunate. It sounded like the perfect thing for me because I’m totally over the top with Christmas, I love charity, toys and children! I couldn’t not put my hand up to donate something. This is going to be at the top of the NZAG tree. It looks much better than the photo, I’m totally making some for myself to decorate with this year. It’s a blingin’ silver star.

Just another vew of it. Turned it into an abstract photo.

This was tonights dinner. Our first Spring/Summer BBQ!!! This weekend was the first REALLY HOT weekend. It only seemed right to mark it with a BBQ. It was so great to eat outside again. Our littlest man didn’t quite make it to dinner. He was too exhausted. He’d had so much fun running around all day with us he crashed out. I love Invercargill summers. 27degrees in September!

These are a few of my favourite things….

In no particular order:

#1 The Sound of Music hehe

#2 Green seedless grapes! I can’t get enough of them. I am seriously obsessed.

#3 Fred. Poor, poor Fred. My friends think I’m demented for owning something like that but I love it’s character! In fact, for the past year I’ve been begging for a red knife holder. Not just any red knife holder…I already have one of those, but one of these.

Hubby knows I lust after this thing…. I’ll just keep reminding him. I’ve never seen it labelled “The Ex” before though, lol.

#4 Scented Candles! Any colour, any shape, any size. My love for candles seems to share similar traits to my love of people.

#5 Salt and pepper shakers. Don’t they just add sophistication to everything? Even if it is just a bbq on the front deck. Well, seeing as I grew up thinking that the blue and white salt shaker you get from the supermarket was amazing, anything is a step up lol.

#6 Salad. SALAD! Oh how I have missed a crisp summery salad.

#7 The colour of that table cloth. I keep bringing more and more pieces in that particular colour into my home. BEAUTIFUL!

And of course… my lovely littlies. They’ve been so fun today. I think they’re happy. What do you think? :) If you look closely you can see the last of Vahnijas chicken pox. I just have to say, she was great while dealing with the pox! You barely knew she was unwell and irritated. Shes amazing like that. As for Nas, he spent the day weeding the garden and throwing the weeds over the fence…. just like his father told him to…. Time for a haircut tomorrow boys!

Stay tuned. I have 2 massive paintings to get completed in the next couple of weeks. I intended to have some done this weekend but as you can see, I was rather busy… and I loved it!

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This Just In!

by Chavah Kinloch on June 30, 2008

Thank you Angela! I just received an email from Angela, another artist from the NZAG, her website link is listed on the right. Today was hanging day at The Bruce Mason Centre where a big NZAG exhibition is being held. This is where the collaborative project will be revealed. The finished product will go on sale on Trade Me later in the month with 20% of the funds raised being donated to the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand. It should look great. Even us, the artists, are kept in the dark about the final result of the project. We also have to wait for the big reveal. Really excited to see the end result. My contribution is listed on the side panel of this blog. Just scroll down.

Ok, now here are the photos Angela’s sent through from hanging day. Ours were some of the first to go up.

The painting below mine is by fellow artist RifRaf.
Another artist Wendy provided this photo. The wall is a lot more full in this shot. Sophia mentioned that she bumped into her HR manager while there and that he took one of my business cards. Yay! It makes me happy to know people are interested in my work.

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Broken Earth

by Chavah Kinloch on June 30, 2008

I’t done! This piece was a lot of fun to create. Getting the colours to come out the way I want on canvas isn’t an easy task. There’s a lot of layering involved in my paintings. So here is the photo. I hope it comes out a bit better in here than it did when I tried to send it via emal just a moment ago.

For details about this painting refer to the more recent post titled “reworking”.
This is now destined for an upcoming exhibition. I’m thinking maybe Dunedin.

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Still Working On It

I’m still working on my painting for the enquiry I had. I managed to run out of gold paint and had to wait till today for the one store in town, that sells this specific paint,to be open. This weekend has been hectic, not at all relaxed like I thought it would be. On top [...]

Take Down Day

Today is the take down day at The Bank Gallery. Ill go in next week to pick up my paintings. Apparently they’d like to keep some of the pieces for the gallery to sell so that’s fine. I’ll be putting a few of them in other places throughout NZ though so I’ll update everyone on [...]

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