Made Some Artiness

 Thursday is the best day ever.  The MIL takes my littlest stumbling blocks off my hands, leaving me to clear the decks make a mess of my own doing.  I've been planning to update Jonah's room for a bit and even though we're not sure yet where that will be I've been collecting all the necessary features and biding my time.
As you know, all my collecting stories begin at Goodwill.  I picked up this modern-ist piece of IKEA art there and really, if you like that sort of thing, it's not terribly bad.  Sadly, it had a four inch gash in the canvas which might account for it being only $5.  But it had a frame.  I snagged it up and carted it home.  (There to sit in my husband's parking spot in the garage for a week being a bit of a superior prat...but then it's a modern painting.  What do you expect?.) But what was I to do with it?

I was stumped until the Oregon weather broke and gave us a sunny day with 70 degree temps.  Time to put Zac in a romper!  (Which is my favorite kind of boy clothes and I'm really really sad that this is the last summer my youngest kid will wear them.)

"Zoinks!" I said to myself.  "Eureka!"  I waited until the food that he'd dropped all over himself dried, then I ran it through my copy machine and then made a transfer.

Then, I was off to Deb's blog for a refresher on how to glaze a canvas.  Wrapping it in newspaper was a must for this project.  It stabilized the gash and smoothed out the texture that came on the mass-produced modern piece.  (The newspaper that I ripped up had references to both BYU and Springfield.  I mean, it's not exactly a sign that the Almighty blessed my efforts...Oh it is, you say?)

 

Then I painted the whole with one small bottle of True Ochre.  I didn't really have quite enough to cover the whole thing--the canvas is quite big) but that turned out to be for the best, giving everything a lot of texture and dimension (those are words I learned in college).  And then I added the glaze (which is really terrifying, btw)--but just on the bottom and I didn't wipe it away as much as Deb did on hers (because I'm a bit of a superior prat...).

 I traced and painted on the black and then thought to myself, "Self.  I don't think you need the three other colors.  Sincerely, Your Artistic Eye."

I had to use the nail gun to get the old frame back on and Jonah kind of loves it.  Did it actually take any skill?  Nope.  I'm a cheater.