My friend Sandra is one of the most charming, generous, funny, beautiful women I know, and I am so honored to call her friend. So when she thoughtfully loaned me her Dremel, ahem, like six or more months ago, she probably didn’t bargain on my holding it hostage for so long. Although she has insisted she hasn’t needed it and told me it’s fine gathering dust in my laundry room, somehow I feel that we have passed the point of simply returning it with a “thanks”…

So knowing her interior to be as colorful and whimsical as her beautiful cottage’s exterior, I hoped a little painted token of thanks might hit the mark.

And seriously, this cottage is so cute, it’s practically begging to have its portrait done!

Armed with the two above photos (which I snagged off her facebook page, unbeknownst to her), I pulled out a 12″ x 16″ canvas and some paints and set to work.

First, I sketched out her house…

Then I cut out around the perimeter of the house to use as a template to get the proportions right on the canvas, and I sketched the house again on the canvas…

Then I mixed up some paints to get the right shades and painted away: first house body, then roof, then porch and background… then roof and house edges again where the “trees” had gotten on them…

Then details, details, details… Like the roof texture and the chairs and the planters and the white trim and the flowers…

It was starting to shape up.

Hmm… Then I remembered the house numbers… And I tweaked the pail color… And rounded the top of the front door window (hmm… which I am now noticing should not be trimmed in white… And I left off her bistro set and the ottoman and little table… It’s always so hard for me to stop tweaking!).

I hope she loves it. [Thanks for the beautiful inspiration, Sandra!]

Now I want to do portraits of the houses I’ve lived in!

A house is made of bricks and stone, But love makes a house into a home.

So, which house would you choose if you were going to tackle a home portrait? Childhood home? First home as a “grown-up”? Grandma’s house? …Do tell!