Baby Shower Present - "Rachel" Painting

I love painting for kids' rooms!!!  I have learned a bit about painting doing them, and had tons of fun.  Here's one I did a few days ago for a lovely young lady at church who is expecting in March.  Her darling little girl will be named Rachel, and I went with something very simple even though that is not what I had planned.

I started out with an 18"x24" canvas, already primed.  I picked a font from MyFonts, a fairy tale font I thought made her name look pretty and adorable.  The font is Blue Goblet Serif, and I love it.  It is a little too spaced out, so I took tracing paper and traced the letters, bunching them up a bit.  Then I doodled flowers and vines coming off the letters.  Once I was done, I used my Artograph Tracer Projector (got it a Hobby Lobby 40% off) to project the words onto the canvas in pencil.  I used the tracing paper under the projector, which was a big mistake.  I started to notice my words were shifting around as I traced, and finally figured out it was because the tracing paper was wrinkling up from the heat off the bulb of the projector.

I usually start painting at this point, but the white has a tendency to show through the brush strokes and the pencil is hard to cover.  I decided to try something different with this painting.  I painted a base coat of khaki colored paint over my sketch thin enough so I could still see the lines of the drawing underneath.

Painting, painting, more painting..




Pretty pink letters.

Overworked it - drat!

Fixing my mistakes.

 And done!  Not the best picture unfortunately.  Glad to have it done, and I am happy with the result.

Art Room Chalkboard - Pinterest Inspired

Thanks, Pinterest, for keeping me busy.  Like I had nothing better to do.  Okay, nothing really better to do, but I have lots of laundry and housework that needs to be done.  Instead of working on my chores I am surfing Pinterest boards and working on pins.  Here is an good example.  I have seen tons of pins on how to make your own chalkboard, whatever color you want.  I first spied this project on Design Sponge.  It was in a DIY post called Bonnie's Chalkboard Planting Pots. 

.The project was written by Bonnie from Going Home to Roost.  Here's her recipe....

I kept seeing DIY chalkboard pins on my Pinterest feed, so I had to make my own.  I used acrylic craft paints to make my board and mixed several colors to add layers.  This is how my board started out.

I didn't like it plain so I stenciled some citron colored paint over that layer with punchinella.  Much better.  To frame the board I decided to paint something bold in black and white.  Here's the coat of white with a little note-to-self written in chalk.  I had to test it out!

Work in progress of my detail trim work in black and white. I used latex paint to do the black and white flower frame.  I got a little farther than this and decided to call it quits for a few days, which turned into a few weeks.  Then I couldn't remember why I stopped but knew I didn't feel up to doing it.

I put a movie in a few days ago and got back to it.  Hubby kept asking when I would finish it.  When I got started working I remembered why I stopped - it was literally a pain in the neck, and my back.  I am so short and I had to use a step stool just to stand on my tippy toes and paint.  And I had to bend over to finish the bottom part.  

Whine, whine, whine, complain, blah blah.  I finished it and here it is.  It was worth it and I am so glad to have it done.  By the way, my couch is never this clean.  It usually holds the laundry I put off doing for days at a time.  When it's not covered in laundry, it is covered with tons of toys.

Tonight, Tonight

I promise I am still here, and I am still crafting.  Still taking pictures and making jewelry.  Just not making much time for blogging.  I know, no fun, right?  I just can't seem to find the focus to write.  

Here is a piece I have been working on for our bedroom.  I love The Smashing Pumpkins, and "Tonight, Tonight" is one of my favorite songs they have done.  I thought it would work well above our bed.  

I started with the picture above, which is a piece of old decor from a Subway store.  My mom had it in her yard and I asked for it.  It is huge and I thought it would be fun to paint over.  I took the frame off and put a coat of gesso over the picture  (which is two sheets of plastic with foam in the middle) and added texture with Liquitex Basics modeling paste.   Since I am not selling the piece I just used Apple Barrel and Fold Art fabric paints.  I printed the words out and projected them up with my Art Tracer Jr Projector and penciled them in.  

Here's the finished painting.  I am quite happy with it, and can't wait to get it up on the wall.  First I need to paint some shutters that I will used as a headboard.  

Hubby picked the font out.  I really like it!