My name is Dee and I live in beautiful Michigan, near Lansing. I am a woodworker and an oil painter, among other things. I will be offering items such as Artist’s Easels and Easel Plans, Bluebird Houses and Kits, Butterfly Houses and Kits, Sewing Patterns, and Oil Painting instructional programs including DVD and CD presentations.
I truly love Bluebirds and Butterflies and think that whatever I can reasonably do to help them they pay back many times over with their great beauty. I am so blessed to live where there seems to be a resurgent abundance of their populations. I love to help others be able to see what I see-to experience what I am blessed to experience.
I am extremely passionate about helping people explore their creative nature. I believe that imparting the knowledge of how to use certain tools, such as paint and brushes, can increase the chances of success a person attains. Not everyone can become a Michelangelo or an Andrew Wyeth, but anyone with the interest to learn more can achieve some level of success in painting something that has meaning to them. I don't subscribe to the idea of everyone painting the same thing, as some instructors do, because these are just cookie cutter paintings and in the end have taught you nothing really. I think teaching people how to use and experiment with the paint, brushes, and images they have, is much more rewarding.
I also believe in making some hobbies a bit more affordable and have been greatly disappointed in the quality of such things as Artist’s Easels offered at a less expensive price-not cheap, just less expensive. I offer plans for the do-it-yourselfer to make a quality, truly affordable easel. I also will offer less expensive easels that are full-featured, but won’t leave people too poor to buy paint.
Another way I can help budding artists is by offering other less expensive methods and tools to use for painting. There’s no substitute for good paint and good brushes, but other items painters use can be made for nothing or next to it.
As a woodworker, I am a strong proponent of safety procedures and practices and have been disgusted to see the proliferation of instruction (often in internet videos) that includes very unsafe practices. There seems to be little in the way of oversight of such instruction, which I’ve even seen in supposed safety videos. So, I am here to say, know the equipment you will be using, paying careful attention to the equipment’s limitations. Use the safety guards that come with your equipment-they are there for a reason. Test the use of power equipment with the power off to make sure that any operation can be done safely. Use eye, ear, and breathing protection, because it only takes one time to do irreparable damage to your sight, hearing, or breathing, but that one time will last a lifetime. Enjoy what you do and what the tools you use can do for you, but maintain a healthy respect for them and use them wisely.
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