There’s a wall in our place where they installed all the breaker boxes. Makes for easy access, but it’s not exactly attractive. In fact, it looks a lot like the inside wall of a garage (which is what it likely was at one point).
So, the notion I had was, what if we could make or purchase some art that could cover each of the three areas. The upper left was roughly 36″x36″, the middle one is something like 18″ x 24″, but the art has to fit around the box, which sticks out from the wall about 5 inches. The last one was small, but still needed to be covered.
First thought was to print a few canvases and add some wall cover, but then I wondered if we could do, but make the art ourselves. I went to the local thrift store with the various sizes in mind and came away with one nice wall hanging with a homey saying on it and two canvases that I decided we could recycle and make our own!
After many coats of gesso, I had two mostly white canvases but no real idea what to do with them. As it turned out, my daughter Laurel was going to be in town and I was going to get a chunk of a day with her. She suggested that maybe we could make something together and, as it turned out, I had just the project in mind!
We went to Michael’s for some supplies, as well as Lowe’s for some sample paint color pots and some material to frame the box that stuck out from the wall, then headed home to make something! I took the large 36″x36″ one and left her the smaller one. We also talked about trying to use some elements of nature like ferns or bits from trees. I cut some wooden cookies from pieces of wood, thinking of wood block prints, but it turns out the paint was too goopy to really be effective for that (should have held out for ink, but we only had a day!)
In the end, we both created something that was sort of nature-y and brought in elements from our local woods. I painted some ferns and used them for stamps, Laurel did some work with ferns as well, plus did some mixed-media/decoupage bits and she also used spraypaint. I’m definitely not going to say mine turned out exactly how I imagined it, but for art done on short notice and with the goal of covering some ugly panels, I think they both turned out pretty good!
Plus, as a wonderful side benefit, I had a great day creating and talking with my daughter as we made art together and covered an unsightly wall!
Note: The small rectangle above the top pic is an old doorbell, I think. It’s non-functional, so it’ll go away soon, which will leave us free of that as well!
0 Comments