Happy first post of the new year!

In addition to shoveling snow at two houses here in Pittsburgh, I’ve been working on web sites since the holidays, many different web sites. Some of them are even mine!

As I mentioned last fall, I’ve finally gotten all of my digital pictures on one drive, design/build/finishing portfolio pictures going back to San Francisco 1996 (these were actually print pictures I digitized in a big batch 5 or 6 years ago). Sorting through old pictures on the computer is interesting because they only show age through technical specifications, not fading, dust or deterioration of the paper.

Anyway its allowed me to find original full resolution files and complete folders of pictures on jobs long buried away on a CD, and show lots of detail in the galleries that was unavailable on any of my earlier portfolio websites. There are hundreds of pictures useful for both technical instruction and design idea generation when it comes to faux painting and other decorative painting treatments, so I’ve really just gotten started with 50 or so pictures about a handful of jobs posted so far.

The most developed example so far is a kids playroom designed with a circus theme I painted in an historic San Diego home in 2008. This project incorporated both faux finish and trompe l’oeil mural techniques, and so I listed different pictures with commentary in those two different galleries.

I also put some design work samples from this project on the custom art gallery page. These pictures help illustrate how a project like this comes to be something out of nothing before anyone tears into your house with buckets and brushes.

I’m not usually so thrilled over the all the great free Wordpress themes out there.

They almost all require hacking up to do what I want them to do and to match options and capabilities with clients’ specifc needs and requests.

So given that I’m my own most critical client, I’m writing again today about this theme and the nice results it gives for my three portfolios I’m in the process of reassembling on this site. I’ve now posted seven entries/pictures on each of the three– a mural gallery, a selection of faux painting and custom textured, embedded and polished plaster finishes, and a portfolio of custom art projects, which includes scenic painting, chalk painting, public art and custom/commissioned paintings.

Here’s a screenshot of the navigation page for the custom art gallery, only the actual page is twice as big- I did hardly any customizing to make this blog perfect for me. It has a big beautiful pictures-first look on the single post/picture pages that I love, too.

Custom art portfolio screenshot

• updated the new mural gallery page on new #WordPress blog http://johnhiemstra.com/murals #
• last video post was to FaceBook for #SanDiego #art reception this Fri http://bit.ly/10QtT1, me, wife @sdmetalsmith, http://bedfordbuilt.com #
• I uploaded a YouTube video — Heather's LifeChain, part 3 http://bit.ly/OAIOA #
• I uploaded a YouTube video — Heather's LifeChain, part 2 http://bit.ly/2pcMhW #

• complete trompe l’oeil circus #mural gallery first up on my new #WordPress portfolio site http://bit.ly/1h165m #art #lt #SanDiego artist #
• fix that link to Heather's LifeChain video http://bit.ly/6rQGs !! #
• posted second LifeChain #jewelry video http://bit.ly/qiVMT to @sdmetalsmith new #wordpress blog! #