Is there any art in your home that was done by either yourself or someone you know & how does this improve your home?

My sister in law is a really good painter and we have a piece of work that she has done on our wall in our bedroom.

Yes. My sister, my grandfather, and my aunt.

A good friend of mine in Texas is an artist & a sculptor. She’s painted 3 pictures for me…they’re in the dining room. They were birthday gifts.

Yes. A sketch done by my girlfriend.

My living room has a beautiful painting done by a good artist/friend. It is of my old golden retriever dog Gus. The painting gives my room such a warm and happy feeling because Gus is smiling as he always did.

The coolest part is that sometimes a random tennis ball ends up under the painting. He adored tennis balls and though I know it was random and not anything paranormal (we have another dog) I think it is very cool he is still attracting tennis balls.

That kind of art it the best kind! I have watercolors at home done by my dad and hand blown glass done by my brother. Here at work I have a wonderful drawing don’t by a very good friend who is an amazing artist. Lucky me!

I always have a camera on me so I take a lot of pictures, and I tend to get the best ones printed and framed, to be hung around the apartment or given as gifts to family and friends.

I wish more of my friends would send me their artwork. I have a portrait one of my best friends did of me a couple of years back, it humbles me to know that I would even be considered for a painting. It’s probably the most thoughtful thing someone could do for me. I have a coloring a young girl gave me when I was judging a Science Fair as well. It’s messy but cute! I don’t know how these improve my room but it improves the energy that surrounds me in some way.

@Dog That made me smile.

One of my roommates is a photographer/cinematographer/Canon employee, and her photos are on the walls of all the common areas of the flat but the kitchen. They liven up the walls and she has an eye for lines and colour, so her photos are very dramatic.

I have one of my works that’s a bit more old-timey near the front door; a blown-up photo/poster of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island that I took in about 2000. I’m better with photos of landscapes and signage and close-up shots of textures; peeling paint, the grain of wood, that kind of thing.

My other roommate is not interested in art, per se. His idea of art is a throw with a Yankees logo on it. :/

@ucme We have art done myself, my wive, my sister, aunt and grandmother.
All types ceramics, oil painting, blown glass and watercolors….
Oh ya, and a granddaughter and grandson.

I have a painting that my grandmother did in the 70s, maybe 80s. I think I’ve actually mentioned it on here before. It’s a Chinese fisherman in a boat. It hung in her house until she died, and my mom let me have it when I got married. I love it.

Well, I have several drawings done by my boyfriend in my bedroom at home. They’re awesome. :)

Throughout our house, we have several photographs taken by my dad (who uses a professional SLR camera for them) that were blown up and “paintified” so that it makes them look more like paintings. They were taken on our trips to Italy and Greece mainly.

My aunt also painted a few things that we have hung up in various places around the house. Most of them are still life/landscape scenes.

There are also a few drawings done by me and my siblings as younger kids that are up in the house as well. One drawing I made of a Christmas tree is framed…lol. There were also lots of decorations that my siblings and I made in school, so when the appropriate holiday comes around, those decorations go up with the regular decorations.

The house is filled with paintings and drawings by my late wife. Maybe one of the reasons I can’t bear to live there right now.

I can’t draw or paint worth a damn, but I do have some photo’s I’ve taken framed around the house.

My grandfather liked to take a lot of photographs. he wasn’t very good but he would have a few out of every hundred or so that were stunning. One of these is hanging in my mother’s living room. There are so many good memories and stories attached to this photograph that it is wonderful in our living room. I love looking at it when I go home and hang with my mom and she loves recounting the old stories that I’ve heard a dozen times before. I think artwork by family members is a wonderful thing to have. :)

I have several paintings, drawings and other treasures that were hand-made and given to me by a dear friend. They are truly some of my MOST favorite belongings whose sentimental value is incalcuable. Two of my favorites of all these favorites is a framed, miniature drawing of my house, beautifully tinted. The other is a hand-made birdhouse in the exact form of my house, which I keep on a bookshelf. Picassos wouldn’t be worth more to me.

I don’t know if it is considered art or not but several of my counted cross-stitch projects adorn the walls in my house. I happen to think it makes the home look rather spiffy.

I have an awsome collage / painting done by a friend of ours it’s of a spitfire pilot… it’s awsome and look sace in our lounge because we have a print of a big print of a spitfire. He also gave a us a fabulous oil painting of a phoenix rising from the ashes, which isn’t up at the moment, still waiting for inspiration on where to hang it :)
He recently did an oil painting of a spitfire too for my hubby’s 40th, that looks awsome on the wall too! And to cap it all he’s a postman by trade total hidden talents!!

I’m a painter, my work is all over the state – well, all over the country; and I have a lot of artist friends. I have a big stash of work by people I know (and also people I don’t know), some of it wall-sized. It’s a storage problem. I certainly don’t have room for the whole collection, not to mention all my own work that hasn’t been sold or destroyed over the years. And I have work that’s too big for any of the walls I currently have in the house.

Sometimes I buy work and outgrow its appeal over time. I wish there were a secondary market for this because some of that work is really good work by really marketable artists. Often I donate stuff like this to auctions if I know the artist has a following in that auction’s community.

I don’t put up any work at all unless I love it as art – sentimental doesn’t cut it. I have family photos up only if they’re beautifully composed, etc. Big snob.
I do have lots of fridge-magnet poems and school pix of kids who are now grown up – but that’s the fridge

@susanc I’m diggin’ your lurve points right now.

I have a painting that I did that has the lyrics to Wild Horses on it and then a pretty background picture of abstract horses. It makes me smile everytime I look at it, that painting is my most prized creation. I have not gotten it professionally framed yet, but when I do it is hanging right above my headboard.

We have a couple of large watercolors done by my husband’s uncle, who was a painter and art teacher. One is in the living room and one in the dining room. I also have two or three small ceramic sculptures done by my sons. I am just as pleased to exhibit those as I am to display the fine reproductions from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

I’ve painted a few ceramic items that I use either seasonally or in rotation; one is a vase on the mantel.

Now that I think of it, my husband and son both have on their walls drawings that I did, but I don’t have any of my own on display. My other son has quite a few of his own very beautiful photographs framed on his walls.

How does this improve my home? I think personalized space is more appealing than magazine-quality decor. The somewhat eclectic character of our harmonious mismatches through the gradual annexation of furnishings and decoration one by one, either on their merits or by casual happenstance, seems pleasant and homey to me. People comment that our home looks very warm to them. A welcoming comfort is much more important to me than something that demands to be admired.

My walls hold several of my own paintings, a few by local artists, one by a college friend, the first drawing my nephew gave me. I never tire of looking at them.

Oh yes and I do have several ceramic bowls I made, but my mother won’t let me have them back!

I create needlepoint and cross-stitch art. I am a registered Native American artist and my house is filled with my work. I don’t know if it ‘improves’ my home, but it certainly feels good. I have had the grandkids say they want me to list certain things for them to inherit. I intend to give them the pieces they want when they have their own place to put it.

I have given homemade gifts to all my relatives and friends. They often contact me to ask if I can make something for them to give as a wedding gift, or housewarming.

Several pieces and they are the few items I drag with me from place to place because they remind me of when my life was more beautiful but also they ease me in whatever walls I occupy these days:

Fused glass pictures by an artist friend exchanged for earrings he comissioned for his wife.

Stained glass and recovered art deco glass building sconce made into a square box lamp by a now deceased artist friend.

Acrylic on wood surface portrait of me made by an ex bf, my Dorian Gray picture.

Grandpas colored pencil drawings of the country side; covered bridges; etc.

I have a habit of painting the sun. Sunrises, sunsets, etc. I made the Millenium Rod from Yugioh out of clay, & it’s in my bedroom window.

My daughter paints beautiful abstract paintings as well as many other subjects. Last year she surprised me with a large canvas she painted of my chinese goose ‘Marwyn’ dancing over a bed of burning coals with wings spread for my big ’ Burning Goose ’ party bash. lol

The burning goose hung outdoors on a big Oak tree with green and yellow floodlights illuminating it for the party.

It now hangs in my little theatre room.

I also commissioned a portraitist to do a large graphite portrait of Marwyn as well, my design, his bust with bamboo in the background with the chinese characters for ‘goose’ drawn in at the bottom. Framed in bamboo matting and a black laquer oriental frame to blend with my mostly asian interior design.

I love my crazy goose paintings….someday they will probably end up in a thrift store and no one will ever know the story of Marwyn the burning goose and best pal of an eccentric and eclectic bohemian chick in the forest. lol

I have several originals by my Mom. The rest of it is stuff I pick up here and there. I’m hoping for a classy/relaxed feeling….Mebee I should take a picture of my living room and ya’ll can tell me if I’m succeeding?

@Val123

Do it!

I am a staging and design pro!

Most of the art on our walls was done by my wife or me, or one of our friends. Photos, paintings, collages, sculpture. The process of making stuff is so fulfilling, and if you do it enough, you’ll get better and better, and some of it is bound to be presentable.
Visitors enjoy discussing how this or that piece was made and usually they like ‘em all. Some people find the place a little overwhelming “There’s so much to look at!”.