More Trash to Treasure

So it turns out that the mom of one of my students was dumping her old stuff into the dumpsters at school.  I found this out because when I would drag something out of the dumpster and bring it into my classroom, one of my students would say, "Hey, that's my mom's."  He apparently told her and he told me later that she had said that she wasn't supposed to be throwing things in there.  Luckily for me, I got two of her old pieces.  The table from the last post was one, this director's chair is another.

Again, I was out on bus duty one morning and saw this calling to me from the dumpster.  I dragged it out and thought....I could paint this and make it really cute.  It started with really banged up oak colored wood and the canvas fabric was a tan with a beige paisley pattern.  I forgot to take before pictures, but below is the end result.  I think it turned out pretty cute.

Trash to Treasure

As a teacher, we usually have to do extra duties.  Last year, my bus crosswalk duty took place close to the school dumpster.  One day as I was waiting on a bus to arrive, I looked over at the dumpster and saw a small, square table on top of a heap of trash.  There was no bus in sight, so I walked over to take a peek.  It looked like it was in pretty good shape, so I hauled it out just about the time one our our PTA moms was driving by.  She rolled down her window, laughing at me and asking me what I was doing.  I told her I was going to take the table home and repaint it.  It's black solid surface was a perfect canvas for...something....

Today, halfway through July, I finally painted the table top.  I still need to replace the legs because the metal legs the table came with are not all that sturdy.   But here is a photo of the finished table top.  I was pretty happy with the result.

Hawkins Homestead

This past winter, a man came into my sister's barbershop for a haircut.  As he sat there in her barber chair, he was admiring the mural I had painted on the walls of her barbershop.  He told her he wanted me to do a painting of his boyhood home.  I met with him shortly after that.  He thought the old place was still standing so I drove from Mooreland to Ft. Cobb to find the old house so I could take photographs from which to draw the house.  Unfortunately, it had been torn down about a year earlier.\

Luckily I had some old photographs and was even able to find a blurry picture of the house on Google Earth before it had been torn down.  All of the photographs were missing the front porch so I had to improvise.  In the planning process, Mr. Hawkins decided he didn't want a painting but preferred a pencil drawing.  He wanted the house in one picture with two separate pictures on the side...one of the windmill and stock tank and one of the barn.

This is the finished house....

This is the barn....

And the windmill....