Artemis, The Watercolor Armadillo

It is finally framed and finished! I painted this armadillo for Rachel and it is finally framed and ready to send! I ended up for various reasons being glass-less, which is just about blasphemous if you ask me when it comes to framing most artwork. Thankfully, my parents trash-picked a piece of glass and cut it to size for me. Thanks, parents!

 

This is a different style than I have painted before and it was really fun. I love tedious stuff like this. The black was all done using a tiny brush.

 

I splattered paint over the page before starting to add a wild and crazy touch of color.

I'm kind of sad to see this guy go, but I hear Rachel already has a nail in the wall for him!

Another Take on Matting Pictures

The other day I got trapped inside by these dark, angry clouds. 

The thunder was booming and the rain started pouring so I decided that while I was relegated to the indoors I'd do something sort of productive. After living in my apartment for a year, I still have some bare walls that annoy me every time I see them. We're not planning on being in this place for much longer so I didn't want to invest in anything fancy BUT I needed a quick fix to fill the void. Here's my cheap and quick solution.

First, I gathered all my supplies: cutting mat, rotary cutter, pencil, ruler, craft paper, X-Acto knives, old frames/mats and pictures. 

The original mats that are already in the frames were 8x10 so on the back of the craft paper I measured and cut that size out. I was using 4x6 and 4x4 pictures so I measured those sizes on the back of the cut craft paper in the location that I wanted them to be. I then measured 1/8 in from the picture measurements so that once the squares were cut out the pictures would have something to be anchored too. I carefully cut the corners out with the X-Acto and did the straight lines with the rotary.

Then I taped the pictures to the back of the craft paper, slapped the mat and pic back into the frame and voila 6 new "mats" for under $2. 

This is the craft paper I used. 

Here are a couple of finished frames. As you can see, I'm clearly one for subtly of theme and color. HA! 

As a side note, I've seen other tutorials for covering the actual chipboard but I wanted the cheapest and laziest possible solution. I think I nailed it!   

Artwork + Frame

About a month ago, my 5 year old daughter painted a landscape picture that I just love. I wanted to frame it and hang it in our living room. When I found the frame at the thrift store, I was a little leery. It was big, hideous, and big. And hideous. The thing that I liked was that it was like a 'real artwork' frame. I took a $7.99 chance and took it home. I was able to pry out the linen inner frame before I spray painted it. When it was dry, I put it all back together and hung it up. I love it! 

P.S. What should I do with the original painting? Chuck it? Do something cool with it? It is oil on a thin wood board.