barn sanctuary auction items

Back in 2017 I took to Instagram to try and rustle up a following and audience to launch one of mine and my family’s grand ideas.

Spoiler alert: the idea was a joint-effort blog and business called Follow Us Home, which we successfully sustained for a couple years, before eventually shutting it down. I shared DIY tutorials; my mom shared vegan recipes, and all-natural cleaning products; my younger sister promoted sustainable, ecofriendly, and fair-trade clothing companies; and my older sister highlighted important charities that we supported. It was a wonderful, and exhausting, dream.

how i found the sanctuary

As you can imagine, we were targeting a specific kind of person, and somehow, through some random vegan hashtag, I connected with Dan McKernan. He was just some chill vegan dude who lived in Michigan and was just beginning on his journey to start a 501(c)(3) Farm Animal Sanctuary. I’ve been fortunate enough to watch the growth of Barn Sanctuary, from just a couple rescue animals, to over a hundred on-site residents, and a show on Animal Planet!

Through the years of following each other, I grew to be friends with many of the people who worked and volunteered at Barn Sanctuary (despite living many states away!), and was given opportunities to work with them to do fun things, like promote their vegan meal planner. I was also one of the art donors in their first online auction.

six years later…

While I’m no longer currently on Instagram (my mental health has thanked me for this change), I still keep up with the sanctuary, continuing to make monthly donations, and offer my artistic talent when needed.

This is the third year that I was asked to contribute to their annual online auction, which will directly benefit the residents at the sanctuary, and I was more than happy to accept the invite! If I didn’t have to worry about making money to pay my bills, I would love to just make art to donate to wonderful causes like this!

And although I’ve been happy with my work for the previous auctions, this may be my favorite year yet. The portraits are so cute that I kinda wish I could hang them in my own house.

the first portrait

The first portrait I did is a portrait of Jamie and Dougal the roosters — two bffs. The metallic golden leaf accent was added at the end, when the black border just seemed a bit too boring for me. I love chickens, and I love chicken portraits, so this one was definitely a fun one for me! I stuck the portrait to pop-dots, to bring even more life to it in the frame!

Jamie and Dougal the roosters

the second portrait

The second portrait I did was with the same 2″ x 2″ gallery style that I used to make my own art piece a few months back (you can see it here!). It features all different residents of the sanctuary, with all different colored skies to really make the piece pop. Originally I was wondering if I should mat it on a more neutral colored background, but the fact is: it looked best on the pink. So I went with the pink.

gallery portrait of Barn Sanctuary residents

the third item

The third, and final, item was a pair of wooden earrings, painted with portraits of Buttercup the cow. I love these wooden teardrop designs, and even made some floral and mushroom designs that I had in my Etsy shop for a little while. But they weren’t as much of a hit as I’d hoped they’d be, so now I just paint them for myself and gifts.