Ideal Bookshelf

I've noticed a bunch of you come to my site from countries where English is not the language of choice. I have painted a few custom collections in other tongues, but I don't yet have any prints for sale. If you have any suggestions on collections you'd like to see and are willing to send me photos of books spines that many people in your country love dearly, please do! I hate that there's nothing currently available for you.

Also, I'd love to do a collection of Sports-ish books, and one of New York-ish books (both in English), so if you have ideas (or photos) for those I'd love to hear them as well.

Thanks tons!

 

*Your* Ideal Bookshelf

Hi there, if you'd like me to paint your favorite books (or someone else's), you can see all the size/price/number of book options here. Click on any of the listings for more info about how to proceed, and to see several examples of other people's I've done at that size. I'm pretty swamped with custom holiday orders but you can always ask.

If you're looking for prints or notecards from the Ideal Bookshelf series you can see everything here.

 

Happy Valentine's Day, early!

Welcome to those of you coming here via InStyle magazine's Valentine's gift guide, and welcome if you're coming from anywhere else as well! 

Below you can see many paintings I've done of many people's books.

Click here to go straight to the special Valentine custom painting of 7 books.

And click here to see all the other size/number of books painting options, plus many inexpensive (non-custom) prints.

 

"Ideal Bookshelf 102: Cooking" on 20x200!

I have another print on 20x200 today (actually it went up yesterday; I'm swamped with custom paintings and not keeping up with things like I should!), full of cookbook classics and a few new great ones that many people have asked me to paint in the past.

On a different note, I just accientally made a mug of tea *so sweet* that I can barely drink it. My teeth hurt. But at least it's hot; I can hold it.

Framing

Many people ask me about how to affordably frame the bookshelf paintings and prints and I'm finally going to post about it instead of typing it out over and over; no idea why it took me this long to do so ;p

I like the Ideal Bookshelves best in white wood frames, and the best off-the-shelf ones I've found are West Elm's gallery frames., and I also like IKEA's Ribba frames. They both come in black and silver, in case the white is not for you. They have great rectangular ones in various sizes, and even nice square ones that often fit the paintings with fewer books (7 or so) perfectly.

Unfortunately, the mats that come with the frames usually have too small an opening for the bookshelf images (especially for the West Elm ones; the IKEA ones are more straightforward). But you can get a custom white mat cut for you at most art supply and framing stores; it usually costs $10-15 at most. Some places may even just cut the opening on the West Elm mat larger for you, to fit the image.

Hope that helps! Also, this video from 20x200 does a great job showing how to do all of this yourself.

 

Ideal Bookshelf 101: Robert Verdi, on 20x200!

 

I got to paint Robert Verdi's favorite fashion books! Nice selection, no? Up now on 20x200!

Ideal Bookshelf as a gift

I've updated the Ideal Bookshelf "gift package," so to speak. Now, if you want to give a certificate for a custom painting as a gift so that the recipient(s) can pick their books later on, I'll mail you a card with the info on it, plus a postcard to show an example, all in a nice envelope. You can then write inside the card and give or send it to your friend.

If it's very last minute then I can still email you a PDF version of the card, no problem.

Also, if you proved me with the recipient's email address and the date of the gift-giving event, I'll email them a reminder a few weeks later, to make sure they send me their books. This seems to be especially useful for wedding presents, so that the couple has time to honeymoon and then settle down before working to compromise on their combined all time favorites ;)

Ideal Bookshelf 42: JMM on 20x200!

Ideal Bookshelf 42: JMM on 20x200!

I have a new print on 20x200, of my favorite young adult books, the ones I read over and over when I was 8-12 years old.