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Paint me a picture!
Okay, so last week I posted the pic I bought at our neighborhood yard sale. The plan, paint over the original canvas (pray it wasn’t priceless) and update the frame. I really had no clue how long something like this might take. Honestly, I kind of thought it might take me a while.
Before Saturday morning while Matt was out golfing, I decided to start painting and see what happened. I made a makeshift painting station in the garage. One side has a small ledge a few feet up and a couple inches wide so I tape a sheet to the wall and was able to prop the canvas up on the ledge. From there I just started mixing colors. Originally I wanted to go more grey but my paint turned a little more green so I just ran with it. I started off with my brush just mixing colors on the canvas. (Really I should have put a white layer on first but I knew I didn’t have enough paint for that.) So I just kept going, mixing paint and brushing it on.
During Once I had the whole canvas covered, which didn’t actually take more than 15-20 mins. I stepped back to check out what I had. It wasn’t bad! I liked the color gradients, so I grabbed a palette knife and started building the colors on the canvas. At this point I was just mixing the colors together with the palette knife and swiping it on the canvas. And it looked pretty good. Once the majority was done, I realized I needed to add a little bit of coral, since the bedroom is basically coral and white! 😉 A little red, yellow, pink and white and I had something that resembled coral. I had no clue really where I wanted to add it and decided on a to just put it near the bottom and hope it didn’t look dumb. It turned out pretty good and is really only a small touch of color. After that I was done!
I texted a few people pics of it and they all thought it looked good.
This is upside down. I couldn’t decide which way I was thing to hang it. Later that afternoon I decided I was going to work on the frame. I ran up to my craft room and grabbed some rose gold and off white paint. I used the rose gold to neutralize the brassy yellows currently on the frame. Then I mixed my off white with a bit of titanium white and added water. Lots of water. It was kind of messy but the result was a nice, worn looking frame. (I will say, the titanium white really wasn’t needed.) The last thing I had to do was paint the outer edge of the canvas. In hindsight, I probably should have painted that white first and then taped it off but I didn’t do that. I had to very carefully paint white around the edges of my newly painted canvas. In the end, I ended up with a little more white here and there but I didn’t really mind the way it looked so I just left it. I did go back and try to fix one corner of the canvas I wasn’t super happy with. It was a little flat. I can’t say it helped but it didn’t hurt it either. Just added a little more color and texture.
I let everything dry overnight and Sunday morning Matt helped me reattach the canvas to the frame. Then I got up the nerve to actually sign it. It was really stressful. 😉 But I got my name on the corner and it doesn’t look awful.
Now it’s hanging over the bed in our guest room! I think it turned out really good!
~k
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Priceless?
Over the weekend we had a neighborhood yard sale. This happens 2x a year and I’ve gone to all of them since we moved in. I’ve managed to score some pretty cool items, for cheap too. Last year I got a bag of pink Christmas ornaments for $5.00, much to Matt’s dismay. (This led to the purchase of a white Christmas tree! 😉 ) At the same house, I found some really large 24×36 wooden frames. I think they were $1.00 for both! They are currently hanging above the buffet in the living room waiting to be made over.
This year, my usual partner was actually participating so Mom said she would go with me. I managed to snag a few free baskets from a friend at our first stop. Mom found a large outdoor lantern and some pics at our 2nd stop (and spent almost all of her money!) After that it was kind of slow. It didn’t feel like many people were participating this year. As we were headed back to the house we stopped at a sale just down the street. There was a large painting sitting off to the side. Mom and I were talking about it when the sellers came over. Apparently it had been “Aunt Ida’s”. They said they weren’t sure Aunt Ida ever liked the pic but she had had it for years. It was about the size I was looking for for over the guest bed but the painting was not really my style. While a nice landscape, it just wouldn’t work in the house. I asked how much and when the lady said $10.00, I knew it was coming home with me.
I told Mom Matt was going to kill me but the frame alone was worth probably $50.00 or more. So my grand vision, paint over the existing canvas. Yep! Matt didn’t care that I’d bought the pic but he was curious as to how long it was going to sit in the garage. I might have a fewor fiveother projects currently sitting out there. :OYesterday, I ran to Michael’s to get some Gesso. I knew I could use that to cover the existing print and also to add more texture. So right now it’s in the garage with a few light Gesso coats on it. Since I hadn’t used Gesso before, I didn’t want to get ahead of myself and get paints too. Plus I wanted to use a 40% off coupon for the paint set so I ran back to Michael’s at lunch to get some paints and brushes. Now I have to figure out what I’m going to paint. Or just see what happens. I want to go for something pretty abstract. I’m hoping that equates to easy.
I’m hoping to have it finished this week so we’ll see what happens. For now, let’s just hope the original wasn’t some priceless piece of art!~k
