orange

work in progress :: rose painting

4 October 2014 by Andrea 2 Comments

So, I’ve had a project on my mind for a while, curing. It’s to take this pic that I received as a thank you…

…and paint it on a large canvas.

Oh, you didn’t know that I could paint? Neither did I, until I took an oil painting class about 10 years ago. In fact, the teacher was visibly irritated with me because she thought that I had certainly painted before, which I had not. Which is weird, because shouldn’t one be happy to discover someone with talent? Well, whatever. She has since passed away, so I’ll not speak ill of the dead, lest they haunt me or something.

So anyway, I discovered that I can take a picture of something, like this orange rose, and paint it. If I’d been born in another place and time, I probably could have made a fortune as a forger, but with science and all, that’s just another dashed hope.

But I digress…back to my work in progress.

After caffeinating excessively in an attempt to inspire myself to do yardwork – a successful venture, I might add – I decided that it was high time to begin this painting project. I had already purchased a large canvas (36″ x 36″) several months ago in anticipation of curing for a while and eventually beginning this project.

First step was to add some picture hanging wire to the back. This time there were no injuries, like last time when I was contemplating a tetanus shot.

Next step was to do some sketching, which you can sort of see here…

The painting will hang on my giant one and a half story stair wall, as you can see it hanging here as a work in progress…

It will have to hang there to dry as well, since a) I don’t have a big, giant easel, and b) I have a cat who will walk on my painting and ruin my life…

Hopefully having a blank painting on a main wall in my house will inspire me to do more painting and less curing!

I will post updates throughout the painting process, so you can see my work in progress.

choosing an accent color

26 August 2012 by Andrea Leave a Comment

Recently I freshened up my family room by adding some simple accessories and not spending scads of money. My new accent colors are orange, yellow, and a vibrant green.

I chose those colors by taking a look at some of the accessories I already had in the room (that I knew I’d be keeping) and picking out some of the more vibrant colors, like the orange and yellow in this lamp shade (which has a great story behind it)…

The spicy pumpkin orange and greens in this chair…

The golden lamp…

The yellow in this vintage advertising art…

And the vibrant yellow lemon zest in the poodle’s martini…(and what poodle doesn’t deserve – hell, even demand – a martini?)…

All pieces that I already had in my family room that either I love (the art and the striped lampshade) or that need to stay because the lotto fairies didn’t leave me a winning ticket (the 90s chairs). Bottom line…I built an entirely new look based on what I already had with just a couple of colors that are now here…

and here…

Plus, just to keep everyone on their toes with a little design surprise, I didn’t just stick to orange, yellow, and green, but also added in a little zebra and black and white…

…because doesn’t black and white zebra match just about anything? Just shake your head yes and agree with me and no one will get hurt!

See it all pulled together in the family room here.

clockwork orange

26 March 2012 by Andrea 1 Comment

Or…

How I Realized That I Would Be Crazy to Paint My Wall Orange

I had this brilliant idea that I would paint an orange rose, something along this lines of this…

…on a giant canvas and hang it on this gray stairwell wall…

…which would be great, because I’m planning to use orange as an accent color in my family room, and it would all tie together seamlessly.

Then I got the brilliant idea that I could paint a small section of the wall orange to the left of the gray wall. Seemed like a great idea in my mind. (That’s foreshadowing, folks…)

Since I was only going to paint about a 5-foot section, I thought about just buying a quart of paint and going for it. But then I thought better of it when I wasn’t certain which orange to choose, so I brought home a couple of paint chips and taped them to the wall like I always do…

…which is a good thing, because I realized that I hated all of them and I don’t think that orange is a color that I can live with, at least not on an entire wall. Didn’t like a single one of them. Not the coral or macaroni and cheese variety, not tangerine, not clementine, not bold orange, none of them.

So let this be a lesson to you. (And by you, I mean me.) Always tape your paint chips to the wall to see how you like them before slathering on the paint.