typography painting

the next project for cricket + me was to figure out what to do with the space above our new sofa.

we knew we wanted to incorporate his late aunt's painting--we just weren't sure how. it's not large enough to be the only piece above the sofa, but we don't want to hide it away in the office either. so...we (err, i), decided on a salon-gallery wall type arrangement that caught my eye on Rhoda's Southern Hospitality blog. it'd give us the flexibility to mix things up as we fell in + out of love with different things, and it allowed us to incorporate bobo's painting (cricket's nickname for his aunt--no one knows why).

so, we would need some things to hang on said salon wall. inspired by momma hen's pottery barn knock-off, the project took shape.

pottery barn inspiration

i had a large canvas leftover from a garage sale that would be the perfect size. see the painting with the dancing girls on the far right? i picked it up at garden ridge when i bought my first condo back in 2006. cricket wasn't fond of the dancing ladies. (sidenote- the garage sale day turned out to be gorgeous. i'd by lying if i said we didn't lounge on the unsold sofas drinking bloody marys with the neighbors until the sun went down. i'm sure the late afternoon shoppers scored some great deals, but i can't really remember!)

1. instead of using random numbers, i used several numbers that had some sentimental value to them: our wedding date (8.15), engagement date (1.29), the day we adopted our dog (1.27), our birthdays, etc. personalized without being cheesy.

2. i played around with fonts in MS Word and decided to mix and match them. i calculated the scale of my painting to get the layout how i wanted.

3. i applied a few coats of black acrylic craft paint on the canvas. it took 3 coats due to the bold colors on the original that i was trying to cover up.

4. i printed out the individual numbers in the correct relative size and cut them out to create a stencil. then, i traced them onto the black canvas using a light pencil.

5. i filled in the shapes with antique white craft paint. i definitely had shaky-hand syndrome + was using too large of a brush. luckily, cricket is an artist-type so i recruited him for the edge work.

6. after the 2 coats of antique white dried, i used fine grit sandpaper to rough up a few spots to get the aged look. i focused on corners/edges to mimic where i thought the painting would take the most abuse over the years.

7. once sanded, i aged the painting using a diluted umber craft paint. i watered it down to thinner consistency + used water to achieve the intensity i was going for in each section.

voila!

we're waiting on bobo's painting to be back from the framing shop where it was being re-stretched and then they'll all go up on the wall. i picked up some ornate gilded frames from a consignment shop this weekend to add to the gallery wall, too. i'm excited to get them all on display!

supplies:
canvas
word-editing software
scissors
paintbrushes
paint: i used delta creative antique white (02001), burnt umber (02025), and black
sandpaper (i used fine and medium grit)