A little New Year’s surprise

Way back in 2017 I blogged about a photo of one of the small Aquabord™ paintings I do while I’m in my booth at horse shows or expos. I like to do that so I can attract people to watch a painting happen and thereby engage them in some conversation. This one is called “Seahorse” and it sold quite a while ago. Okay, be patient, there is a connection to be made a couple of paragraphs down.

My horse Charm stars as a body model in this painting.

So here I was three years later with a special request from a long-time friend of mine who owns a company called Lamou Design. Lamou makes custom tables, serving trays, coasters, and such, with personalized designs which can be either your own photo or chosen from a huge selection they have. My friend, Ann, had a client who wanted to gift someone with a tray featuring horses. Just my luck that the client didn’t have any source material and neither did Ann in her vast library. Good thing she knew just who to turn to!

I sent her a bunch of high-res photos of what I thought would make great images on a tray, and the client picked one titled Dodge, which featured two horses playing on a little hill.

“Dodge” (as in avoid, not as in automobile!) watercolor on Aquabord™. This one also sold a long time ago.

To return the favor, Ann made me a tray using the Seahorse photo I had also sent, because she thought it would look super cool on a tray. It landed on my doorstep a few days ago.

Here’s an idea of the tray’s actual size. Yes, I am hiding my face. The top half of my face looks a lot younger than the bottom half. 😂

As a tray, sitting on my oak buffet.

The tray can also be used as a piece of art. Looks pretty nice on a log house wall.

The amazing thing is that the original painting was only 5″ x 7″. Yeah, I had a hi-res photo, but still…to enlarge it this big and have it still read as the original watercolor that it was, that’s kind of amazing. The image is actually printed on the baltic birch wood from which the tray is made, not printed on some other substrate which is then applied to the wood. This process lets the grain of the wood show through a little bit and I think it adds interest to the ultimate image.

If you like this idea, to see a lot more of their work search “lamou” on Etsy.com or search “lamou” on Facebook. Or use #mylamou. You might even want to special order something for yourself!