A Real "van Gogh"- Kathy that is.

Completed Piece " The Real van Gogh".

On October 2, 3 and 4th we were fortunate enough to have Kathy van Gogh down here in the London area. On the 2nd we had a quite dinner with Kathy and all our employees. So besides Kathy and Bobbie and Bobbie's sister Ann we had Penny, Laura, Jesse, and Emily. I was kind of out numbered. It was good though because everyone came away awestruck by the fabulous Kathy. Unforturnately in preparing the meal, which consisted of my famous French onion soup (both regular and vegetarian) lasagna (meat and vegetarian) I didn't get any pictures though I think Kathy did. A fine time was had by all.



This is the picture from the Weekly News

The next day I headed to the London location while Bobbie and Kathy enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, and they headed out to a Meet and Greet at the Port Stanley Location. There they met our other employee Shanna who wasn't able to make the supper and Bobbie and Kathy also were met by local newspaper editor and publisher Terry Carroll where Terry interviewed Kathy for a future edition of the St. Thomas Weekly News.

I have since found out that although they put a picture and a byline in the next issue of the paper that the actual interview will appear in the Elgin - This Month - a monthly magazine which is produced by the Chamber of Commerce and the Weekly News, which is a big score as it is only published monthly and only outstanding news features are in it. While at the store Kathy received a couple of mystery books by local author Terry Carroll. Yes, the same person as the editor. We sell his books in our store and he graciously autographed two of his books for Kathy. An interesting side note is that Terry has been shortlisted on the lists for a number of mystery writer awards in Canada and the U.S. I think it amazing sometimes on how lucky we are to have all the creative people in our lives that we do.

Before Picture
 


It was then on to the London Location were lunch from the Organic Bakery was served and our part time student Jesse had arranged and did an excellent job of choosing some excellent wraps and salads.

We were then off to the Meet & Greet in London where we had it at the Brydges Street Merchant Market - Antique Mall. There we were meet by Cy Edy who just happens to be Bobbie's son and also manager of the Market.

Here we met by a good crowd of people coming to meet and see Kathy. Kathy demonstrated some of new products we are launching as well as some of the more familiar items of the original makeup line. Now the story of the 'real van Gogh'.


On the previous weekend we had brought a piece with us to the Paintologist Workshops in Port Perry. The original piece is pictured above and it was painted a rather unattractive brown colour. Most of the knobs were missing but there were some distinctive features about this piece.

On this day Kathy used this piece to further demonstrated the Furniture Frosting which is part of the Furniture Makeup, of the van Gogh Furniture Paintology products.

Furniture frosting has been designed to take your furniture refinishing to the next gorgeous bling level.

It was inspired by the beautiful iridescent lining of the Abalone shell. Elegant and timeless, Furniture Frosting helps you, the artist to create contemporary opalescent finishes that will have everyone asking, "how Did you do that?"

During the workshop we demonstrated how to apply raised detail to an object. The two bottom drawers on the dresser both have detail added by pulling our Facial Face Lift (embossing plaster) through a stencil. In this particular case we used the Versailles border which is one of the ones in the van Gogh Stencil line.

The body of the dresser was painted in vGFP colour Revenge. No distressing was done. . The key holes were spray painted with a gray hammered metal paint. The knobs were painted vGFP colour Mascara. We overlaid the stencil on the embossing and then painted through the stencil with the same vGFP colour mascara. This gave a tone on tone effect which we feel is quite luxurious looking. Just a coat of French Caffeine Wax was applied to finish it off.

So with this piece because of Kathy's involvement we call our "real van Gogh". It is currently residing at our Port Stanley Location. If it is still there in November it will be relocated to our soon to be opened second location in London which will be at the Brydges Street Merchant Market - Antique Mall at 1255 Brydges Street, London, ON. Till next  time keep painting, and come and get your hands dirty!