A bountiful feast of inedible delights

Happy day after Thanksgiving!  I don't think my Thanksgiving table would ever make it into a Norman Rockwell painting...

Tablecloth?  Who needs a tablecloth, when the table is covered with such bounty?

Thankfully, I wasn't hosting the dinner this year, especially since the coffee table, the art table, the foyer table and the kitchen table all look like this right now.  I don't think guests would have gone for the picnic on the porch idea, since it was spitting sleet here in my part of Minnesota much of yesterday.  If you want to see what is being put together on all these tables full of art stuff, click on over to our new 365 Being blog, where we give you peeks behind the scenes, and glimpses into our own ways of BEing in the world:  365being.blogspot.com.

It's the print version of our Autumn Sampler.  Worth getting for the perfect party recipes, alone, not to mention all the other gorgeousness and great reading!  (and NO advertising)

Oh, and for this holiday weekend, there's a sale on pdf subscriptions, and our sampler issue in that format is only 99 cents!  More on the blog, or go straight to the website: 365being.com.

Okay, so back to The Art of the Home.  My recent paint projects actually have been mostly for a photographer.  I showed a few of them a week or two back (I have seriously lost track of time), and here's another front/back pair.  Toni wanted some to look like her clients are wandering around interesting old spaces, so she asked me to create the look of that sort of wall.  The first few were "plaster" walls, and the latest ones are wood.  With all those fabulous riding boots back in fashion, I thought some old hunt club paneling would be a good idea:

"Hunt Club Paneling" photography backdrop.  

The other side was inspired by driftwood, and the weathered and sun bleached wood of the docks in Coose Bay, Oregon, though a little less gray.  Just the dreamy essence of that silky smooth grain:

"Driftwood and Dock" photography backdrop

Only one more to paint, and then I can reclaim my work-out space, which will be an especially good thing, now that the season of butter and sugar is upon us!

Any of these backdrops would make a great wall finish.  Faux wood can be done very loose (like the driftwood), theatrical (like the hunt club paneling), or if you want to spend a lot more time, very realistic, like the cedar garage doors I posted back in September, or the oak doors you will see on my portfolio site, theartofthehome.com.

If you want to try it yourself, and need some pointers, feel free to email me at dawnmariedelara@gmail.com, or better, leave your question in the comments below, so we can share the info with other readers.