I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call these “art”, but this pretty pair now decorates our bedroom.

What you’re looking at (above) is a personal record: from pin to done in less than a week! It’s also a total rip-off…wait, let’s call it a spin-off of this piece by Tanya.

It’s good, right? And Tanya made it sound so doable. [Sidebar: When I pinned her painting, it blew UP; over a hundred repins in 10 min. That was my first pin-splotion. Have you had one?] I’m typically in over my head on painting projects, but I’m pretty pleased with the results this time.

The simple (yet chic?) outcome belies a highly complex creative process. Kidding, it was just as simple as you’d guess. But I won’t make you guess. I started with this:

I wasn’t planning on different sized canvasses, but it seemed like the genius (read: cheap) move when I found these two in my craft stash. (Who knows what grand idea they were purchased for.) The paints are Martha Stewart’s craft paints from Michael’s: metallic Gold and Deep Sea and Geranium in satin finish. I think they were $2 each. I’m sure the foam brushes were five cents each, marked down 95% from $1. Seriously.

I first covered each canvas with 1.5 coats of orange/navy base color (one coat + some fairly substantial touch up). Before I touched the gold, I (demonstrated great restraint and) sketched out where I wanted the color transition to be on each canvas. I knew how I wanted the pairing to align, and didn’t want to end up with the transition line going straight across both pieces.

I made a fancy note card mock-up then moved on to the gold. I just squeezed a line of paint right onto the canvas, about an inch away from one short edge, then spread it with strokes always running from that short edge toward the other (i.e., along the length of the canvas). You can see the coverage after one coat of gold was not complete.

I think it took 2.5, maybe three coats with the gold to build up enough coverage and achieve what I decided to call adequate whispyness. At one point, based on Tanya’s technique, I tried using a stiff brush dipped briefly in water to feather out the gold. That didn’t work well for me, so I stuck with the foam brush and just used a lighter touch toward the flamy/whispy side (technical term).

I was originally going for a top-aligned arrangement with the larger canvas on the left and the smaller canvas on the right. But, being the free-spirited arteest that I am, I didn’t manage to stick to the carefully sketched plan. I ended up with a larger swath of gold on each canvass than I intended.

When I looked at the finished pieces in the intended arrangement (above), the transition lines felt a little too close for comfort. They either needed to align perfectly or needed more room to breath. I definitely wasn’t feeling the straight across option…

…so I opted to space the lines out by dropping the navy canvas two inches for a bottom alignment instead. And I don’t hate it. But now that I look at these pictures, I’m thinking I may go back to the original plan. TBD.

My favorite things about this project are (1) the color combination, and (2) it’s done-ness. And folks, I believe this project marks the end of my year-long flirtation with redoing the master bedroom and kicks those plans into gear. Slow gear, but at least a moving one. Next up: must get that dresser painted and out of our living room!

=======

Linking up with these fine folks for the Summer Pinterest Challenge: Bower Power,  Ten June, Young House Love, and Centsational Girl.

Linking up with Bowl Full of Lemons’ One Project at a Time