Storm's Art Part 2

Here's a couple better pictures of Storm's art in her room.

Storm's Art

This:

has been kicking my butt this week.

I started it last Saturday, sorted out the right paint shades and painted the words.
I got about this far:

And there it sat for more than a few days, while I distracted myself with virtually anything that would allow me to not sit down and finish painting all that black around those teeny tiny swirly letters.

My original idea was to paint the sides black, the background a lighter pink with the black backed letters. Sorta like this:

Except...I really didn't like it.  For one thing, I made the pink too bright.  My Storm is not a pink girl.  It was just a bit disappointing.

So, I came up with another idea.  First, I painted the area that would remain pink, a much lighter, nicer pink.

Then I called in the husband to mark out the outline and tape it all off.

Thank goodness for him. 

ready to paint

Following advice on how to get picture perfect stripes, I painted over the tape with the light pink.

And then painted over the tape with black, and filled in the rest of the area.

Then I recruited the man again to take off the tape.

Here it is, all done and drying, waiting to be hung up in her room.

I'll have to take a better picture in the daylight when I hang it up.  Oh let's be honest.  When Ryan hangs it up!

Whew.  I'm glad this project is done.  I get to cross something off the list and Storm is extremely happy with it!

First Veto

Saturday was Ryan's busy day.

He shovelled our sidewalks, shovelled out the gate to the back yard, chipped all the ice off the back sidewalk, walked down to Mom's and shovelled off and chipped all the ice off her back deck (since someone beat him to the front driveway).  By the way, it's like -25 with a windchill and Mother Nature decided we didn't nearly have enough rooms on our igloo and dumped like six more inches of snow on us.  He started laundry, cleaned the stove (!), went to the store, made supper, and vetoed one item off the list.

That's right.  One thing now has a notation beside it.

You see, I mentioned it's -30ish outside right?  Well, guess what.  It's about -20ish in the attic space.

Ha!

See that?!  #14.  spring job, above 0!!

Ah well.  I've lived with that weird light for almost 7 years.  I'm sure I can wait another 3 months.


Oh, and before you think I wasn't home or just sitting on my computer, I was getting started on #22.

That's right.  I'm in the painting zone.

Star Wars Art

I seen a few Star Wars eye charts floating around the web and I thought they would be perfect for the boy's Star Wars theme they have going on in their room.

I still have a few canvases left so I painted one of them black. 

Normally, I would paint the white letters on myself, but the inspiration piece I seen on the web had simply printed out letters on regular white paper and then Mod Podged onto the canvas.

Hmm.  Me and Mod Podge.  That can't possibly go wrong can it?!?

I just used a font I liked and then highlighted the background to print in grey and cut out all the letters.

Then after a lot of thought, and calculations and measuring and general wishing I had just used my projector to get the letters on my canvas, I had my art.

I think it's slightly crooked still.  Ah well.  The boys don't care.

Here it hanging on their wall, between Storm and Blade's paintings of Ahsoka and Yoda.

Ryan says art isn't supposed to be perfect.

Looks like I got that part right.

Indecision

Wordle.

My new love/hate website.

I could hit Randomize for hours, trying to find just the perfect layout of words and fonts.  I think I was literally driving myself a little bonkers. 

I know, I know, I'm already there, no need to go farther! 

I was attempting a new layout for a matching painting to go beside my Sweet Family painting I did last week.  Eventually, I pried my mouse away from the randomize button, with about 8 layouts I couldn't seem to decide between.  I sent a desperate shout-out by email to a bunch of friends.  We narrowed it down to this one:

Sorry to all my friends!


And then I went downstairs to put it on the projector, and on the canvas, only to find out that the font was just TOO small!!  O M G. 

Instead of driving my friends bonkers as well, I just went back to Wordle solo and hit random a few more zillion times, making sure my words were big enough and I ended up with a similar font as the other painting.

I was aiming for a big S on one side, with a list of S words that describe our family on the other side.  I couldn't get the S big enough for me, so I ended up doing two separate pictures.  One of a S solo, and one of all the S words. 

Yeah, I should have just done that to begin with.  Nothing like taking the long hard road....

And then came the painting, and the squinting, and the cramping of fingers and arms.

I made sure to have more white colored words this time.

Here it is next to the other one.

Finally. 

Finally, that wall doesn't look so bare any more.  I'd show you the rest of that wall, but that would mean I would have to clean.......and I have Christmas crafts to make.

Screw cleaning.

Subway art, my way

My hand is a little sore.  My arm is a little sore.  I haven't painted in a really long time.

But I got it done.  Even before Christmas!  Go me.

It started off with using Wordle  to inspire me with the placement of the words.

Decided on something finally.  I had tons of screen snips.  I could spend hours hitting randomize on that site.  Anyways.  Here's a shot of the words on the canvas before painting.

I used our projector and traced the words on with pencil.

Words all painted.  Looks good with a white background, but I wanted black.  Sometimes, if I'm doing a black background and using the projector I'll just print the picture or words in white and then either draw the outlines on with chalk, or paint in the dark with the projector on.  Yes I've painted in the dark.  Lots.   But it's freaking cold in the basement and I wanted to paint at the kitchen table.  So I painted all the lettering first.

Then I outlined in black. 

Here's where I stopped for the night.  All the eyes and faces are for the kid's amusement when they woke up in the morning!  They were quite fascinated with the painting.  Blade was so happy his name was in brown, because it's his favorite color!! Um, not really, it isn't, but he's a sweet child and he was just excited to see his name and everyone else's on a painting.  Hehe.

Finished Painting.

It now hangs in the kitchen.  The colors look a little off in this picture, but here's the inspiration for these particular colors.  It hangs about 15 feet to the right of the gigantic painting I did 4 years ago for behind our table.

Side note:

Hunter came home from school and seen the painting with just the letters done.  He says, "Did you do that with Wordle?".  I was like .. um yes, thinking in my head, how do you know about Wordle?  Hunter: "Oh, yea, we use that at school when making our Power Point Presentations!"  

...

Have I ever mentioned he's 9 folks??  NINE, and they are making Power point presentations in school..with wordle.   School rocks these days!

Getting things done

When asked what I was possibly going to do with myself now that all the kids are in school fulltime, I always answered "Get a job I guess."

Well, it's been almost 4 months. No job.  But somehow the days are still busy enough, and once in a while I actually get something done.  Hmm.  It may not have been those kids slowing me down....

Yesterday's Projects:

Fix a poor dog's tail

Patch the holes in some well worn ski pants

(It is indeed winter in Canada this week!)

Today's Project:

Painting some subway art, my way

I'll let you know how the art turns out.

Ryan just wanted know if it would be done by Christmas.

Funny man, that husband of mine.

A amusing story to end this very short post with.

Yesterday, I did fix Hunter's ski pants.  I also fixed Blade's.  He had a rip in the butt of them.

Blade was sitting at the table, having a cup of hot chocolate with Ryan after playing in the backyard.  I was discussing that I had sewn double layer patches on Hunter's pants.  Blade perks up and asks me if I sewed his pants.  I said that "Yes, I sewed the hole in your bum."   Blade looks happy at that thought and then says "But not the real hole in my bum".   ....  Ryan and I just looked at each other dumbfounded, then laughed our own arses off.

You can't make this stuff up.