Add Warmth to Your Kitchen

Just because it's getting colder outside doesn't mean your house can't be warm and inviting all year round. One of the secrets to creating warmth is to use colors that mean cozy comfort.

Blaring reds and bright yellows aren't warm, they are exciting for certain but they don't bring a feeling of coziness. The colors you want to add are maroons, forest greens, browns, and touches of purple work too. Add items to your room that reflect a warmth. Think hugs and other warm fuzzy feelings and you'll be in the right track. Speaking of hugs, you can hug your kitchen area with a wall paper boarder that goes around your room. You can choose flowers, herbs or Americana themes to project the warm and welcoming feeling you're looking for.

You may not have a fireplace in your room but you can create warmth by creating a cozy conversation corner in your living room. Turn a couple of pieces of furniture towards a corner and put a table. You can also get a portable bar and serve up a great wine for impromptu gatherings. If your budget won't allow for a bar, you can use a two-shelf bookshelf in the same capacity.

If you are lucky enough to have a fireplace in your home, add a big fuzzy rug and some large pillows. It makes a casual and cozy sitting place for just yourself with a good book or add a friend to enjoy the fireplace with.

You don't have to break the bank to make your home into a cozy gathering place for your family or friends.

Art - Pretty Functional

Artworks are more than just pretty pieces to hang on your walls. They can also be used as functional pieces to tie in colors, harmonize the room or add balance. There are a lot of great tricks you can do with various artworks to make them perform the dual function of looking great on your walls as well as tying together colors and patterns.

If you have a soft decor that done in a French Country style, consider adding a rustic floral design or country look rooster such as a Charles Wysocki open edition print of a rooster pulling a cart full of country fresh items. The Rooster Express is done in two different styles to match any taste. You can choose to have the print or a canvas reproduction. The prints are double matted and framed; the canvas artwork is framed and both pieces are done using archival tapes and papers as well as arriving ready to hang.

Another great way to incorporate colors into your decor is to use an area rug that catches some of the main colors in your artworks on your wall. This will really make the color scheme in your decor flow.

You can use artworks so many ways to make your room look brighter, livelier or just add a whimsical touch to show your own personal sense of humor with your choice in artworks. Use these tips and brighten your interior!

The Secret to Making Your Room Seem Larger

If you have a room that seems small and dank, there are a lot of little tricks you can do that will make your little room seem a lot larger.

First of all, get rid of your dark areas in your room. Darkness makes spaces seem smaller. If you have dark draperies, trade them in for lighter color window treatments. Dark colors make a space seem smaller while lighter colors open up the room and give the illusion of more space. Next, say goodbye to clutter. Nothing makes a room seem small like knick-knacks. It's great to have personal collections around to make your room more "you" but draw the line between collection and clutter.

Another trick to opening up a room is to use mirrors. They are fantastic for giving the illusion of more space. Place a mirror or even a pair of mirrors on the wall that is the furthest away from the doorway to the room. When someone enters the room their eyes will catch the mirrors on the far side of the room and the illusion of more space will be played in the brain.

Another way to open up a room is to make use of your "5th wall" or your ceiling. Adding an object of interest such as a ceiling tile collection in a lighter metallic color will keep the room from feeling closed in. Decorative ceiling textures such as lightweight medallions made out of resin that can be painted to match the ceiling are also a fantastic way to open up your room.

You don't have to knock out walls or completely redo a room to give the illusion of more space. Use these tips to make your small space seem larger this weekend!

Add the Art of the Most Famous Living Folk Artist to Your Walls

If you want to add a touch of whimsy to your decor, go folk art! Folk art is a little raw, usually done with a sense of humor and is always the perfect compliment to any interior design.

Warren Kimble has become a wildly popular folk artist that is highly collected across the world. Kimble works in a 200 year old barn that he uses as a studio and shares the space with a number of farm animals such as cows, sheep, pigs and a number of chickens. He finds the barn studio inspirational for his folk art paintings that encompass farm animals, houses, landscapes and every day things such as chess boards and backgammon boards. His original pieces are done frequently on old signage boards and other pieces of salvaged wood. Add a print or two to your walls for a fun touch to any decor.

One print that will easily match nearly any decor is the open edition print "Gone Fish Inn" which is a recreation of the original piece that is done on an old hanging inn type sign. The print is done on acid free paper and framed using museum quality tapes (archival). All you have to do is pick the type of frame you'd like your piece in. If you really want your artwork to stand out, choose a slightly darker frame than the edges of the artwork. It doesn't need to be the same color, just darker in a complimentary color will work beautifully.

Using Art to Create Balance in Your Decor

Whether or not you subscribe to the beliefs of Feng Shui or you merely want to add some of the elements of Feng Shui design to your room, you can start off by using one of the main principles which is to create balance.

One of the easiest ways to add balance to your decor is to think "pairs". If you are hanging artworks, make it a pair that goes together or even better a diptych which is a pair of paintings that actually make up one whole painting when placed side by side. Diptychs are made to be placed on the walls as closely as possible while still allowing a sliver of wall space to come between the artworks showing they are together but also separate.

Instead of one lamp on one side of your sofa, opt for a pair of lamps; one on each side. Additionally, your items don't have to match exactly. There is a neat pair of prints by Warren Kimble that are titled "Barn Door I" and "Barn Door II"; both of these are in irregularly cut frames that add interest to the piece as well. One side of the interior of the frame faces outwards on each of the paintings and when used as part of a set they will bring a nice sense of balance to your walls. They could also be incorporated nicely on each side of a doorway or side by side behind a small occasional table.

Other pairs for your room include pairs of pillows on each side of the sofa, bamboo plants and pairs of candles for further balance in your room.

Picasso Art Prints

Most people associate Picasso with the cubism style artworks he produced. Cubism is a very interesting style of painting where a common object such as a chair or cat or other everyday item is broken into sections and examined in detail in different areas of the artwork.

This was the reason disjointed faces and violins with pieces around a painting were prominent in some of Picasso's early pieces as he painted in the Cubism style. What many people don't know is that isn't the only style Picasso used. He also painted a good number of portraits of everyday people living life as he experienced it.

Picasso was known as a fiery tempered and hard to live with man who was able to see the beautiful in the most common of objects and everyday situations.

Sleeping Peasants is not done in the Cubism style and many people upon viewing it may not believe you when you tell them it is a Picasso. This framed art print is done in neutral colors and will easily match any decor. The print will arrive framed under glass and is mounted, matted and framed using archival tapes to ensure your print stays as beautiful as the first day you got it. The artwork is finished with a dustcover on the back and ready to hang. If you need a great gift for that hard to buy for person on your holiday list, consider giving them a Picasso for their walls this holiday season.

Fantasy Art Makes a Great Gift

For many people, thinking of a fantasy art piece is equivalent to the artwork found on a Sci-fi novel cover and involves space creatures, planets, and exotic monsters; but fantasy art is much more than that.

Fantasy art is a realm of the whimsical and magical and can encompass a myriad of subjects. Fantasy art makes great artwork for children's rooms. If you have a little princess that is into fairies, you can get a great piece of a fairy circle or dancing fairies to delight her every day. If your little man of the house enjoys dragons, kings, or pictures of faraway lands that never were or everyday creatures doing impossible things such as pigs flying- he will enjoy a fantasy artwork.

A fantasy artwork is also a great way to add to a friend's collection. Many people collect themes such as mermaids, cats, fairies, and others. A fantasy artwork is a great way to give a friend a piece to add to their collection in the form of a mermaid painting for a friend that collects the watery sirens or perhaps a dancing cat painting will bring a smile to their face.

The artworks, whether they are oil painting replicas or matted and framed prints; will be covered with a dustcover and ready to hang right out of the box. If you want to add a touch of whimsy or a conversation piece to your artwork collection, consider adding a fantasy piece!

Dragons for Your Home!

Dragons have long evoked feelings of majesty and respect. Dragons are thought to bring joy and luck to any household they grace and in the realm of Feng Shui, dragons placed near doorways are thought to remove negativity and repel anyone wishing to cause the resident of the home harm.

All that aside, nothing looks more magical than a dragon. A piece of dragon art can fit in any decor from Shabby Chic to the austere Modern Eames style. There are a good number of choices for adding dragon art to your home. Go for a replica painting which to the untrained eye will look like an original apiece as even the brush strokes are plainly visible. A print matted and framed under glass will also look fantastic.

If you feel you have enough artworks hanging on your walls, think sculpture. A small dragon sculpture will look wonderful on a shelf by a winding ivy plant that mimics the curls and turns in the dragon's body or consider placing a pair of dragon sculptures on each end of a shelf or by a fireplace if you're using a Feng Shui method of decor in your room as the pair of dragons will bring harmony and balance to your room.

Don't feel that you're locking into having a green dragon on an artwork either. If you want a painting featuring a dragon but you're a little tired of seeing green dragons with yellow fire and not much else - check out the burst of color in Tiefeng Jiang's signed and numbered serigraph on canvas: "Dragon Bride". This outstanding piece is bright and will make a real impact on your decor.

When you're looking to add something to your room and you want a piece of art that is both magnetic and regal, consider adding a dragon to your room - it's a lucky choice!

Add Monet to Your Interior

One of the lines from the movie, "Clueless" has the main character describing another character in the movie as, "She's Monet, she looks great from a distance but up close, she's just a mess!" and at first glance many people feel that way about impressionist art.

Monet had a unique style of using dots of color to form complex and detailed paintings that aren't apparent and if you stand very close to the piece you will see dazzling uses of a complex palette of color, however if you stand back - the colors will form a beautiful woman in a field of poppies- as in one of Monet's most well known pieces,Poppies.

You can get a Monet for your walls in a few different styles and each will make an outstanding addition to your decor. First, you can add a replica oil which is produced on artist grade canvas and then stretched and framed. If you enjoy having fine art pieces in your home or you're looking to collect items, this is the option you should choose.

Prints are also a great way to showcase your artist taste. A print is a print of a painting that is matted and framed and looks exactly like the original without the detail of brush strokes as it is a flat design. Prints look fabulous in any art collection and either type would make an elegant gift.

If you're wanting to add some softness of color and an interesting piece to your art collection - go Monet!

Warm Up Your Interior for the Coming Cooler Days

If you're looking to bring some warmth into your decor, look towards your walls as well as your colors in your room.

First of all, bring light into your room. If your window treatments are dark and dank it's going to translate just that way into your decor. It's okay to use heavy fabrics to keep the chill out but go for lighter colors and patterns. Also, to bring more warmth into the room, add splashes of color in the form of pillows on your sofa, love seat and/or chairs. If you have a tropical themed throw, drape it across your sofa for a casual and stylish look.

Next, add living plants. Even if you're thumb is decidedly brown you can easily grow bamboo or a bonsai palm tree. As long as the plant has water and sun, it will grow. If you feel even a bamboo would be in danger of your plant caring skills, go for silk plants, they are made from blends of different silks and fabrics to lend a very realistic look and whether real or manufactured, greenery will bring a warm touch to your room. Get a tall tree - real or silk is your choice- for your corner spaces. Good use of your spaces equals good decor.

Small sculptures placed in three or four places around your room will allow your design to flow. Think palmetto or palm tree, shells or other beach and tropical artworks. Use your wall space to bring a tropical air into your decor. You can use gorgeous tropical prints and even if you live nowhere near a beach, you'll get the feeling that there is one just outside from the warm, tropical feeling within your home.

Walt Disney - Not Just for Kids

If you want to add a touch of whimsy to a room and you aren't sure where to start, think Disney. No one has fired the imaginations of more generations than Walt Disney with their outstanding animated films.

When an animated film is made, clear sheets of acetate or plastic are used called "cels". Originally, these cels were completely hand painted with 24 cels rendering one second of film time in an animated film. If the character was going to move in an animated film the cels would have to drawn, one on top of another and then photographed in order to give the impression of movement when the animated film was played. Disney's early films were hand painted cels and each one is a work of art. Nowadays, the movement is done mostly by a technique called "tweening" where the artist hand paints the character in one motion and then hand paints the character in another motion and a computer will fill in the movements necessary to make the character move from point A to point B with sheer fluidity of movement.

Whether it is to commemorate a fun trip to Disneyworld or you want to start a collection of your own Disney cels make cool additions to any wall space. If you're looking to purchase a cel you will have three distinct types of cells to choose from.

Sericels are the recreated images of animated characters. The images are silk-screened onto the acetate cel and the result is an image that is vividly striking. Sericels are usually released in collectable limited editions.

Hand-Painted Cels are the crowning glory of any Disney collection. If they are from older Disney films they are often recreated by hand as a replica of the original cel as many of the originals cels from the earliest movies no longer exist. However, these cels are inked and painted by hand and what you get is an image from your favorite Disney films all your own.

Lumicels are limited edition prints that are from the wildly popular Pixar line of films. Pixar animation is done almost exclusively through digital means and a lumicel will bring your favorite characters to life. The lumicel is motion activated and with a movement in front of the framed cel, lights and sound will be activated. Some lumicels have snippets of information about the piece and others have spoken tag lines by the characters themselves or short songs from the Disney movie. If you want an impact piece that will make your guests stand up and take notice - a lumicel is a very fun item to have on your wall! Best of all, until activated, it will sit quietly on your wall and look exactly just like all your other fine artworks as there are no moving parts and the speaker and volume control are hidden from view.

If you're looking for a fun gift or you just want to add something whimsical that is also fine art to your walls, or you are a collector of Disney memorabilia; check into a framed cel or two for your decor.

What Are Giclee Art Prints?

Giclee (usually pronounced "zhee-clay") is a process that was created in the early 1990s as a cost effective alternative to producing artwork prints through other methods such as screen printing. An ink jet is used to produce a giclee print and when a fine artwork is created as a giclee, none of the crispness of the colors are lost and you get a very high quality art print.

The process of giclee was originally created to "proof" art prints to see if the print renderings were ready for mass printing but it was soon discovered the proof was as good as what was produced. The term actually describes any high resolution ink jet printer produced print. Most giclee prints are made with archival inks that are fade resistant and with pigments that hold their light fastness for years to come. Just as serigraph represents any fine art that was produced through silk screen printing methods, a giclee print was produced digitally through the use of an ink jet printer.

Giclee has leveled the playing field for artists who want to mass produce their artworks through prints. Many fine art collectors enjoy the fact that lesser known artists are now able to put their work out and make more of a name for themselves in the previously closed print field that was only open mainly to artists who either were household names or could afford to pay for expensive lithography or serigraphy printing of their works.

Add a giclee print or two to your collection; the colors are crisp and bright and for a great example of how giclee printing can capture the most subtle in tones and shading, check out "Ruby" by Alberto Ahumada; this piece has a limited palette and the giclee print picks up all the subtilties of color within this outstanding print.

Great Gifts of Art for Cat Lovers

We all have someone in our lives that we love but they are so hard buy gifts for; it's not because they are picky - they are the type of people that if they want something they simply buy it and usually want for nothing.

If your hard to buy for friend is a lover of all things feline, you can't go wrong with artwork as a gift. A limited edition print makes a great gift and one that the recipient will think of you often when they glance on their artwork hanging on the wall. A limited edition is a set number of art prints that are made and numbered. In come cases the prints are also signed by the artist increasing the value of the piece. A framed print that is not a limited edition is usually a mass produced from an original artwork and with the printing methods of today, including textured papers that appear to show brush strokes, a fine art print is an outstanding piece to add to any decor.

Should your gift recipient have a whimsical nature, there is a great cat themed print called "Lickin' Whiskers"; it features a small cat licking his chops in the window of a fresh fish market. The size is 15-inches by 18 inches and won't be a huge space commitment on the gift recipient's wall space. As with all the pieces, the print is framed with care using archival tapes to prohibit degradation of the piece from the acid found in many tapes and papers. The print will arrive fully framed under glass and ready to hang on the wall. If you know the basic colors in your friend's decor, you can match it perfectly with the wide array of framing options.

Make this holiday season a memorable one, get your feline loving friend an artwork for as a special gift and they'll be purr-fectly happy with your present!

Why Buy Art Online?

Buying products on the Internet is becoming more and more commonplace. You can get everything from groceries to your prescriptions to automobiles purchased and delivered over the web. One of the biggest reasons that Internet shopping has grown so much over in recent is the sheer convenience of it. You get more selection than you'll get even in the largest local fine art store and you also have a chance to browse at your leisure when you're not at the mercy of traffic, store hours or crowds.

Because of the huge number of choices, you may log on thinking you might purchase a painting to match your sofa with a lot of red tones and not only find the perfect artwork for that purpose you may run across the perfect cat painting that will make a perfect give for a friend when holiday time rolls around.

Adding even one piece of fine art to your walls can jump start a boring decor into something special. If you're interested in having a collection of art, find a theme or color scheme you like and add pieces as you go. If you have a minor color in your room that you want to bring out, choose an artwork with that color as a major theme and hang it on a nearby wall to help the minor color flow through your decor.

Shopping online is convenient and your choices will increase and you're more certain to find the artworks you want to begin or add to your collection in your home.

Make Sure Your Prints are Made Using Archival Products

Prints are a great way to have fine art around you home that not only looks excellent, it will retain its good looks for years to come if you made sure your print was made using archival products. If that's not a term that is familiar to you, basically it means will your print last? If your print was produced using archival quality inks and archival tapes were used in the matting and framing process - you can count on it.

Paper is naturally acidic unless treated to render the paper with a neutral Ph of acidic content; many commercially produced inks are also acidic unless archival inks are used which are also processed to removed the naturally acidic nature of the inks. Natural pigmented inks work perfectly for producing prints by either serigraphy or giclee methods but must be sealed. The framing process for a print is very simple. The artwork is taped down to a backing piece using archival (acid free) tape then a mat is placed over it. The mat is to protect the print from touching elements of the frame that naturally contain both acidic properties as well as iron.

Both can be degrading if allowed to directly interact with the surface of a print - but cause no harm if simply separated by a mat board. The matted print is now slipped into a frame with a glass front and a sturdy backing is placed over the whole and held in place by either small framing staples or small nails.

Under glass and out of direct sunlight; your print will be protected from breakdown by both direct sunlight and naturally occurring acidic properties and will continue to look fabulous on your wall for years to come.