So when my darling boyfriend moved into his new casa, he started scoping out artwork for it. He gave me some visual insight into the kind of aesthetic he was into... the man stayed up until 3am watching an abstract painter on YouTube. The fact that he stayed up late watching ART being created made my heart meeeelt <3 I swoon... So, after googling and looking at the price tags on some similar items, I set out to do what I normally do - paint them for him myself.
"Why buy it, when you can make it yourself?" That has been my un-intentional life motto since I was 8. My brain is on constant project overload... I thank 4-H for that and my parents for being true "Do It Yourselfers." It's in my blood ya'll.
I started out with 5 pieces of 1/4" thick 12" x 24" Birchwood panels. I love painting on wood surfaces, so I picked a few up "on the cheap" (catch phrase credit to Mrs. Krueger) at Michael's. I then drew up a design, had it approved by my sweetie, and went to work.
One thing (among many many other things I assure you) I love about this man, is our common love of color. It made choosing a color scheme unbelievably EASY. He helped me paint the background with 2 different cans of spray paint. I opted for a flat black and a glossy chocolate brown. I thought a mix of gloss and flat would make for a nice array of textures... texture might not be the right word for that, but I'm not sure how else to describe what my mind was putting together. Either way, the mix of the two was pretty much covered entirely by color.... oy.
Afterwards... this is where the painting went solo. I spent a good 4 hours working on them one night, and this is where I got:
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| Pardon the blurrrrrr.... |
Ok. It wasn't THAT bad, but it just wasn't the look I was hoping for. I liked parts of it, but the rest needed some work. The main problem was my color palette was off. It was too dingy. I was focusing on making them match a few pieces he already had a little TOO much. So I do what I always do and I fixed it. Lookie loo!
Needless to say, It looked a whole lot better after I corrected the color palette. Brighter is always better. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of the finished color parts BEFORE I added paint splatters... I added a bunch of reds, yellows and some hidden stripe details in gold. Aww shucks.
The paint splatters were the quickest and the most fun step of all. Except.... I got black and white paint ALL over my back deck, which I immediately had to hose off before it dried. I didn't get all of it off and the tree next to the deck is still COVERED in paint splatters.... oops. I was in too big of a rush to prep my paint area. I'm just thankful I didn't do it IN the house. Afterwards, I added a few more gold and copper details after it dried and voila!
DONE DITTY.
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| Can you see the reds and yellows I spoke of? OOOOH!! Pretty :) |
There you have it - 5 pieces of finished artwork for a new house for a woooonderful man. Me love you long time! He even helped me hang them. Had he not, there would be holes EVERYWHERE. My math skills were not being very kind to me that night. To quote the man, "Good thing you don't have a job that requires you to be good at math..." Gee, thanks babe. haha.
....and yes, I'm so glad you asked. That IS Grand Theft Auto 5 on the TV... ha.
Cheerio!
