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Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Blank Canvas

Since the day we moved here, there has been a big empty void in my house - right above our headboard in our bedroom. The artwork that used to hang above our bed in our old house now occupies a big empty space in the master bathroom, leaving the wall above our bed nice and empty. I have looked through stores countless times over the past several months trying to find something that (1) I liked, and (2) didn't cost a small fortune. Apparently, those two things don't coincide when it comes to artwork. *shrug*

Anyway, I got tired of looking and finding nothing. So I got a bright idea to try to make something myself. I started with the plan of making four canvas paintings and grouping them together. I fully finished two of them. I started the third. And totally ran out of time to do the fourth.

So what did I do? Improvise. Made something up. Made due with what I had available. You get the idea.

Here's the project from start to finish...

Step 1. Paint brushes, paint, and a blank canvas.
Step 2: randomly start painting. (Actually, I did have an end goal in mind... it was just a matter of trial and error until I got to something close to what I had in mind).
Step 3: Goop on lots of paint and swirl it around to make a textured-ish background.
Step 4: Keep doing step 3, mixing colors until it looks... well... until you feel like stopping I guess.

Step 5: Stencils, paint, and glitter. The glitter was totally a spontaneous addition. I like how it turned out though. (This isn't the final product... I kept layering stencils and glitter, and adding touches of paint here and there until I felt done with it... keep scrolling down... you'll see the finished deal in a sec.)

Move on to a new canvas. More random paint strokes. I just squeezed the paint right onto the canvas and started brushing it around. Not exactly a science to it.

Again with adding more colors and layers of paint until I just felt finished with it. I did dry the paint between layering though. If I would not have dried them, it would have just blended together, like mixing paint on a tray. Not good. Not the look I was going for. I like this brushed grungy look much better than mixed up mush.
And again with adding stencils and glitter and paint strokes here and there...

The third canvas I did, I actually only started. Didn't really finish, but we're calling it done... for now.
And then the improvising. Because the idea was to hang up four pictures. Not three. But I had a lamp sitting on my bed. Maybe that could fill space. But a plain lamp is boring. So, I busted out the paint and stencils and painted it up a bit.


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1 comment:

Val said...

So pretty, Rebecca! It really fits perfectly! =)