question about ornamental painting

[bee_pipes]

I have some wood work I'd like to add a few personal touches to. I have seen bird houses, etc. with simple painted stuff on it - hearts, tulips, squiggly do-dads, etc. I spent a good part of yesterday looking on the web for this sort of stuff and didn't have much luck. Maybe my terminology is the problem. A search on squiggly do-dads didn't turn up anything useful.

Tole painting seems to be popular, but I don't want a landscape or get too ambitious. More like simple silhouettes of chickens, corn, wheat, etc.

I did come across some interesting stuff, called "country primitive" or "primitive country". They are simple figures - animals, houses, farm buildings, etc. I know I've seen this sort of thing in hobby lobby, painted on small furniture items, milk urns, etc., but there isn't one near us. Do any of you crafty folks have places on the web where you can find pictures or patterns? I'm looking for simple - being artistically challenged - just want to add a few spots of color to some wood projects.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Pat

[CarolAnn]

Pat,
There's a book out called "Decorative Folk Painting" that you might find at the library, or look up tole painting & rosemaling on the net.

You probably want rosemaling - lots of scrolley flowers and birds!

[bee_pipes]

Thanks CarolAnn! That popped up a few leads. Rosemailing is a new term to me.

Regards,
Pat

[tufhelp]

You might also try a site like Yahoo and their "clip art" collection.

http://images.search.yahoo.com/

Just type in topics like folk art, pennsylvania dutch, country are, country painting, etc.

You'll be surprised by the selection available.

Most of the big search engines have clip art etc. for the taking...

[bee_pipes]

Thanks CarolAnn and TufHelp - appreciate the input. Here's the result:

(mozilla/firefox right click & view image for larger pictures)
http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_3.jpg
Front view

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_2.jpg
From the front

http://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o120/bee_pipes/hive_decorated_1.jpg
From the rear

It's not the best I've ever seen, but over all I'm not too displeased with the result. This is something that I might try to keep at, just to personalize any of the stuff we build around here. Again, I appreciate your suggestions.

Regards,
Pat