Make A Geometric Painting On A Canvas, step by step

What is it about painting that makes me feel all frenchified and beret-worthy? Anyway, I at last got around to painting one of the giant (and deeply discounted) 40 x 30″ canvases that we scored for $23 from Michael’s thanks to 50% off with an additional 25% off on top of that (more details about how that happened at the end of this post). Ever since discovering this inspirational poster design from here (thanks to my good friend Pinterest) I knew I hoped to adapt it a bit. You know, go wide instead of vertical and have some lively with a few $2 paint samples from Lowe’s (total spent on paint: $9 for three pots which I then mixed with white craft paint that I had on hand to create a ton of distinct tints of the same few hues).

First I used a yardstick to space out equal vertical lines (I simply used the width of the yardstick itself to keep things even) which I drew with a pencil:

Then I used the corner of a little card that we got in the mail (from an oil-change place) to create those angled peaks to mimic the prism-like shapes from my inspiration.

Then I simply filled each shape in with a variety of shades of blue and green (all derived from the three test pots of paint from Lowe’s and some white craft paint to make some of the shapes lighter). As for the specific paint colors, I used testers of Tropical Waters, Embellished Blue, and Thermal Spring by Behr. Here was what I was left with at first:

It was lively and kind of high-energy, but the contrast was a little too much for me. So my foray into painting reminded me why I enjoy painting so much: you can consistently paint right over it. So I mixed up a much lighter shade of greeny-gray and went over all of the darker green parts for a much more subtle tone-on-tone effect. I ended up here:

I enjoy the imperfect lines and painterly brush strokes and the varied shades of the same few tones. The only thing I do not like is the location. It simply does not feel right in our bedroom since the walls are a similar shade (and we thought the tone on tone look of the art might layer in nicely but it is feeling a bit too monotone-ish and blah for us). So we are thinking we might hang it in the dining room once we have a pleasant big buffet or console to go under it near the front entryway. Or it might end up somewhere else entirely. Simply not on a soft blue-green wall. I guess I simply like tone on tone art that is not also on a wall of that tone. Go figure.

I went into this project expecting it to take an evening or two and it in fact took a while longer (perhaps four or five two-hour sessions) but in the end I nearly did not want it to end. It is simply lively to paint again. Perhaps I will tackle something else soon. I hope so. Have you folks painted any canvases lately? It totally took me back to my high school and college days (I took every art class my high school offered and then went off to art school in NYC for college- where I somehow ended up with a BFA in Advertising Design). Although using the paint pots from Lowe’s certainly made me smile since I am used to paying five million dollars for oil paint (ok, that is an exaggeration, but it was not consistently low-cost for a broke college kid).

And speaking of art school, that is where a drawing professor of mine dubbed me “the narrator of life.” Apparently I’d simply sketch and jabber on about everything as it happened (ex: “oops, I dropped my charcoal” or “now for the foreground” or “yikes, it is noon already”). I sound truly annoying right? Thankfully most of it was under my breath. My teacher had to lean in and ask what I was saying, which prompted me to realize that I was in fact saying things out loud (I was in the zone, I knew not what I did). That “narrator of life” nickname embarrassed me at the time, but now I find it hilarious that my actual profession is essentially to narrate my life. Who would’ve thought. Perhaps I should hunt down that professor (on Facebook?) and tell him where I ended up. Simply do not tell him I used house paint instead of oil paint. Scandalous.