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I'm still trying to work on this schedule of mine. Meanwhile, all I have to show is that I've finally managed to hang the two paintings that came out of the Pages and Paint workshop that I actually wanted to frame. Both of these are hanging in rooms that don't get very much (or good) natural light, so the pictures are just so-so. Both were also painted on 6x6" flat gessobords, and I decided to frame them using Blick's gallery frames in the same size. I was just waiting until I had to place another order at Blick, and I just did, for the co-op art class that begins this week. (!yay!) These frames were each under $10 and I'm really happy with how the pieces look in them. I didn't cover them with the plastic front piece; I prefer these to be framed but still open.

This is the one I did using a sketch of my daughter playing at the beach, and it's hanging in her room now.

And this is my poetry quote (from Prufrock, of course). It's now hanging on my (still-unpainted) bedroom wall, where I can see it when I wake up.

You can see both of these paintings in much better light in photos from previous posts: beach and quote.

I've also finally gotten around to getting my birch trees ready for hanging. I always envisioned this hanging loosely, so I added casings at the top and bottom and bought some really beautiful oak dowels at the hardware store. I hemmed the sides, sewed the casings, and cut the dowels to size. The bottom one isn't meant to be seen--I may add a few stitches to hold it in there securely--it just adds weight so the fabric hangs nicely. The top one extends two inches out on either side, but you can't really see that, because my assistant (my younger son) has the dowel in a very firm grip, being very mindful that dropping mama's trees (which he likes very much) would get them dirty.

This isn't quite ready to hang--my original thought had been to gently carve into the top dowel near each edge, just deep enough so that some hanging wire or fishing line wouldn't slip out of it; I'd wrap the wire on each side, with some slack, and hang it from the middle. I still want to hang it that way, but I'm going to look for some finials or end caps that fit the ends, instead of carving indentations. I think it will give it a more finished look, and also make sure the wire or line doesn't slip off the ends. This requires another trip to the hardware store, so it may take a bit to finish this off completely, but I'm almost there. Another plus of hanging it this way is that it doesn't hide the back, which is just as interesting, in its own way, as the front.