Bargain Art

Sometimes I go on treasure hunts while thrifting and find the occasional surprise, especially in the art category. This is a watercolor painting listed only as by Sedel currently on auction at Goodwill.com; bidding at the moment stands at $20.00 plus shipping.* A few seconds of research turned up art by Reita Sedel that looks remarkably similar to the one I found (just for almost ten times that price.) So you never know what you're going to find.

(And why didn't I bid on it, you may ask? I don't especially like the artist's style. Kinda creepy.)

In the sewing category I noticed two mid 20th century sewing books for sale; one was this handmade, handwritten and handsketched sewing samples book. Finding things like this is like taking a trip through the time tunnel; it's utterly charming. But the listing doesn't show if the entire book was filled, and I think the starting bid price of $29.97 (with no takers as of yet) was a bit high.

This lot of 30+ quilt blocks looks fairly contemporary, and from what I can see the blocks are well made. I use orphan patchwork to make lots of things, too. That's why I placed the minimum bid of $9.99 on them (which believe me, is a steal.) If I win the lot I'll do a separate post on them when they arrive (alas, lost this one in a down-to-the-wire bidding battle with a last-minute sniper.)

This is another original painting that I bid on, a watercolor by Byron Rodarmel, who noted on the back a copyright date and the reserve of reproductive rights. That shrieks professional artist, so I did a little research. Apparently the artist worked in the movie industry in animation on a few films. I didn't care so much about that as the subject matter of the painting, which is a quilt show. I also love watercolors. I had no competition for it and won the auction for the minimum bid of $14.95. I'll guess the painting is worth ten times that.

*This painting ended up selling for $32.11.

Image Credit: all the images in this post were taken from the original auction listings on ShopGoodwill.com.