Easing back into painting

Long ago I used to paint, like 10 years ago, I would paint on my tabletop easel late at night, and create these cute Bob Ross style landscape paintings. They are hanging all over my parents house, literally, they are hanging ALL OVER my parents house. I love it, it think it's cool to see my progression and skills increase over time, but alas, I soon grew tired of this style painting, and the enormous expense involved with oil painting.

Now that I own my own home, and am at an ever desperate attempt to decorate and fill the vast empty walls my home contains, I've began thinking about painting again. I would love to have original unique artwork instead of your typical reproduction prints you pick up in the home department at Target. I also like the idea of creating something that truly complements the colors in your home.

So, here we are, I found myself at hobby lobby picking up a few canvases and some acrylic paints this time. My husband bought me a free standing easel, and we got a few new brushes. I've decided to try my hand at a more abstract style painting, I still love the idea of painting landscapes, but I feel the desire to be more open in my interpretation of what a landscape is. My first painting was a lose interpretation of two doves on a wire, something my hunting husband loved, and the colors compliment our master bedroom, so it's a win-win. 

I used acrylics and it is a highly textured canvas, using a texture medium. Not too bad for a 10 year hiatus if I do say so myself! More to come I'm sure!

Two Doves. Textured acrylic on canvas 2013. © Rene Lopez 2013.

Subtle Wall Stripe

Subtle Wall Stripe




Directions:

Step 1 Prep Work:

As with all paint projects, prep work is key. First paint a base coat on the walls; for stripes that's really important because the base coat will be one of the stripes. Use a flat paint that is exactly the same color as the stripe to be painted on. It's also important that the base coat dry for 48 hours before you start to work on the stripes.

Step 2: Measure and Mark the Walls

After the base coat is completely dry, begin measuring and marking the walls for the stripes.
Measure the wall, starting in the corner that's least seen.
Next, divide the wall. Stripes should be between 4" and 12" wide. (I did 12" stripes because I have a HUGE wall and anything smaller would be too busy) Place the first strip of tape in that obscure corner where you began measuring.

Place the end dot on the tape you've already applied to the wall and press the strip to the wall.





Next, if you have one I highly suggest using a laser level to shoot a beam onto the second dot. I did not have one so I make several marks on the wall from top to bottom and placed the tape very carefully along each line to create a straight tape line.





Step 3: Press the Strip of Tape to the Wall

Tip: Remember that because you will be painting only every other stripe, you'll need to tape out the pattern so that every other stripe is outlined by the tape. Make sure to tape outside the chalk line; fresh paint will cover up the lines.




Tip: You can also make the lines with a chalk line. Use blue chalk because red or yellow is a permanent color.
I used both blue painters tape and green frog tape, I ran out of the frog tape very quickly, so I had to make sure to maintain the same measurements using a thinner tape. Basically what I did was split my wall in half. It is 280" and 140" would be dead center.

Since I wanted my stripes to be 12" wide I measured 6 inches on either side of center and then created my first stripe. The tape for the glossy stripe (the ones we will be painting over the matte wall) had the tape lines exactly 12" apart, so the other stripe (the matte stripe) would have the tape one both sides inside the 12" perimeter, so that the glossy stripes would all be 12" exactly, and the leftover tape went on the inside of the matte stripes since I was not painting them. Once we remove the tape both stripes will be an even 12 inches.





Step 4: Burnish the Wall

These next two steps are the most important prep work you can do when painting stripes on a wall. If you do not complete these steps you won't get nice crisp paint lines on your wall.

Burnish wall with a credit card to seal the tape edges so no paint seeps underneath the tape.



Step 5: Paint Over the Tape

Paint over the tape line with the base paint (the matte paint), making sure to only paint about half the paint line, otherwise when you pull the paint off you will see a distinct line one both sides where the tape was. One coat should be enough. Make sure there are no gaps between the wall and the tape, and if there are burnish the tape again and fill the gap with the base paint to form a seal.



Allow the paint to dry for 1 hour. Basically by the time I was done painting all the stripes I could start back on the other side of the wall.

Step 6: Paint the stripes

Taking a roller that is smaller then the diameter of your stripes and a small paint brush.  Using the paint brush I did the ceiling and above my trim and using the roller I filled in the center. Make sure that you get the gloss color over the paint about halfway, so that the paint lines are very clear when you peel the tape off.



Step 7: Remove the Tape

Remove the tape once you've painted the wall, angling away from the freshly painted area as you pull. I gave it 15 minutes before I removed the tape, giving me time to paint 1 stripe before removing the tape from the previous stripe. You DO NOT want to leave the tape on too long, I've seen vinyl paint peel after drying and I would hate for it to peel after all this work!

The tape and paint technique worked amazingly, it created crisp and even lines and since the color is the same, one stripe being glossy and the other matte, it created a classy and elegant wall that is subtle and gorgeous!.



Progress as I move down the wall!



All finished!



Starting to put my frames back up and my furniture back!

Scrapbook Paper on Canvas

I had seen a few of these floating around on Pinterest, and I have been trying to get back into painting lately, so I thought some free and easy wall art would be perfect for my broke barren walled new home.

I bought three 8x10 white canvases
I already have oil paints, which I prefer to paint with.
You'll also need some scrapbooking pages, you can buy individually at craft stores or a pad of various ones of the same color palette.

Over the years, I'm sure most of us have accumulated a stash of various types of decorative papers, such as the scrap-booking papers I seem to have thousands of.... Pick 5-6 sheets of complementary designs and colors for each canvas. I decided to go with a gold hinting in my background paints of green, orange and purple so I selected complimentary colors for each of those.

For the gold/orange canvas I used lots of purples, and teals
For the purple canvas I used lots of yellows and greens
and for green canvas I used Blues and Yellows

The first thing I did, obviously, is mix up my paint colors and paint each of my canvases. Then I let them dry, completely - actually several days....

Next I cut the center of my flowers and determined there location, but by only placing them atop the canvas, not affixing them yet.

I made a series of "leaves" for each canvas, but each canvas having its own distint shaped leaves. For the Gold my leaves are very traditional angular shape, for the Green canvas I used a bulbous round leaf, and for the Purple canvas I went with a more heart shaped leaf.

You'll want to do each canvas individually so you don't get any mixed up. Start with small leaves, and then gradually increase your leaf sizes out, laying them on the canvas, radiating from the center piece. When you have made them in a design that you like, you can stop, and be finished cutting.

Then comes the glue gun... Start gluing down the pieces one at a time, pressing down as much as you can, so that it lays flat on the canvas.

Once that has dried you can paint over the entire canvas with mod podge if you desire, I have matte mod podge, so thats what I did.

Magazine on Canvas

Magazine On Canvas

As another attempt to fill the empty walls of our home, I decided to try something crafty again with a small 8x8 canvas I had on hand.

You'll need some colorful magazines

Elmer's Glue

Canvas

Paint

Mod-Podge

A decorative stencil of your choice

So the first thing I did was take a bunch of old magazines that I had on hand, in this case, it was old Food Network Magazines. I flipped randomly through the pages and cut out random shapes from colorful pages. All colors, in sizes that varied from the palm of my hand, to the size of a finger.

The next thing I did was take each of my magazine paper strips, and began glueing the pieces, overlapping them, all over the canvas until it was completely covered, even wrapping the edges around the sides of the canvas.

I found a stencil online, this one is of a dragonfly. I printed it out, and then stenciled the image onto my dry canvas.

Using a marker, that you can see the stencil on my canvas.

The next thing I did was paint all of the areas of my canvas outside of my stencil, so that the only paper you see is the stencil image.

I went with yellow paint, which made covering the magazine images difficult, and found that I needed to do several coats, letting it dry between them to get enough coverage.

After it was completely dry - which took a few days, I then used mod podge and brushed it all over the canvas to seal and unify the artwork. 

The artwork ends up with a nice texture, which you can't really see from the photo, and also has a nice interesting design. All in all, I would do this project again. It is currently hanging in our guest-room over the nightstand.