Blood, sweat, tears… or art – Camino+Collective Home

Damn Youtube! Those How-to videos always make projects look so much easier than they really are. (Pinterest too – insert bad gesture here.)

You see what makes what we do so much fun is that we totally see potential where others just see junk. We can visualize what an item can be and we ~~foolishly~~ truly expect that with a little clean up and a little TLC our pieces will be gorgeous.

That’s exactly how it goes too. HAH! Reality includes lots of blood, sweat and tears. Thankfully, mostly sweat, but still — it makes for a stinky workspace.

Learning as we go some projects are much harder and take way more effort than we expected. Damn Youtube and all those talented designers for their expertise and ability. You really know how to pump us up with too much confidence in our abilities!

This long introduction is just a pithy explanation for why our new favorite treasure to hunt for is art!

Does that mean we aren’t going to purchase anymore furniture or make more soft goods? Of course not. We are nothing if not tenacious for believing that we will get better as we gain experience. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

The fact is that finding and learning about a lesser known artist is so much fun. (We really are the biggest design geeks!) Plus, if you saw the last post, artwork finishes and personalizes a room.

Also, it’s not like we’ve been so fortunate as to find an original Van Gogh or Monet. At least not yet. Again – fingers crossed. Though one can always dream… Like the Picasso print we featured in the last post, though, we have uncovered some noteworthy paintings, sketches, and lithographs. I mean it is fun to find a signed and numbered lithograph of a favorite artist, or an original piece of artwork from a lesser known or forgotten artist. And how about uncovering an original painting from an artist whose works have been seen in famed museums around the world. Amazing!

Our art treasures will be available on our Etsy store very soon.

Mostly, we find pieces of art that have colors and composition that just really appeal to our senses. (I mean what is art, but a visual translation of a sentiment, feeling or emotion individually interpreted and felt on a personal level?)

After we bring back our lovely art pieces, the research begins. We try to find out who, what, when, etc. That’s when a lot of the cool stuff is uncovered. For instance, we found a gorgeous oil on canvas of two doves in shadowy blues. We loved it right away. We had no idea who the artist was. We didn’t really care it was so pretty. As it turns out, the artist is well renowned in the art world. (We will tell you more about her another time.)

Here it is featured in one of our previous posts about this awesome table which is still available on Etsy.