My Indiana Home / Another Summer Weekend

The watermelon painting hung in my grandmother's kitchen as I was growing up - it was painted by her sister (my great-aunt), Firma Duchene Phillips. My grandparents heated their house with coal and the painting had become pretty dull and had been sitting around in my trunk various places ever since their sale. I touched it up with Kramer's Antique Improver, and it came back to life beautifully - I found a frame at Goodwill, and voila, it's as good as new. The little print to the side is a gift from a friend. And that lovely little quilted runner that looks like it was made out of feedsack material on my little table is a garage sale find for only $2.00!

I touched up my Uncle Tom Durant's painting with Kramer's as well, but Uncle Tom paints with a much lighter touch and I learned I had to be careful not to lift off any of the paint. I did lose a few specks, but again, the color came back beautifully. Uncle Tom grew up near Chicago but has lived in New York City most of his life - he paints a lot of pictures of water and trees, and in this case dark shade - because in Illinois things were so flat and there was little shade in the heat of summer - so trees and shade became sort of an oasis.