A Room with a View (of Amateur Paintings)

Back in January, my sister brought up the idea of having me paint some art for her apartment. She was going to be moving from a shared apartment to a new studio in New York and wanted pieces that matched her imagined decor. I like to dabble in painting and I wanted a personal project to work on so I decided to go for it.

Her color scheme consists of pink, green, and gold. After brainstorming ideas and asking her what kind of art she wanted and how many, I landed on making 3 paintings on different sizes of canvas.

The first piece I started on was inspired by art my sister had seen on Pinterest. She wanted something large with a geometric pattern so I bought this canvas on Amazon and got to work.

To make this, I used FrogTape for the pattern and then used foam brushes and acrylic paints to create an ombre effect. This was really fun to make but I would make some changes to the process if I were to do it again. One, the gold paint I used was the perfect shade, but it was extremely thin and in order for the lines to look solid, I had to paint 3 layers, which took forever. Two, I would invest in an easel. I painted this sitting on the ground and leaning over and definitely had some back soreness in the days following.

My sister didn’t have any requirements when it came to the three paintings so I took it into my own hands to come up with the idea for the second piece. I saw some really cool art on Pinterest that was made using water and tissue paper. I watched this really cool art video on YouTube and wanted to try it out. To create the watercolor effect, I cut out tons of tissue paper flowers and leaves (with paper templates) and one by one, I placed them on the canvas and carefully brushed water over the tissue pieces. And here’s the canvas I used.

I personally am most proud of this piece because it was a new technique for me and I had a lot of fun doing it. It was a bit tedious, but in an enjoyable way. I bought a ton of pink and green tissue paper in different shades for this project but only ended up using a few. Most of the pink tissues were too light--I used a hot pink tissue and it still came out a very subtle light pink on the canvas. If I could do this again, I’d buy darker pink tissue paper so that I could have multiple shades of flowers, similar to the leaves.

The last piece I painted seems to be a crowd pleaser (of a crowd consisting of my sister and my mom). I used this canvas, some acrylic paints and a palette knife, and then some FrogTape to map out the lines. Originally, I planned to have textured streaks of solid colors. However, while painting, I was unhappy with the results and ended up smearing the paint to try a different effect. Luckily, it turned out well! And honestly, I like the end result better, too. I just hope I can recreate this in the future because this was fun and easy to paint and I would like to make one for my own place.

Overall, super happy with the results. Here’s how my sister laid them out on her wall:

She laid things out so well, don’t you think?

Isn’t her apartment adorable? She doesn’t know this, but she’s inspired me to reorganize my apartment to make it look nicer (which I’m still in the process of doing).

Obviously, the perfectionist in me looks at the art and wishes I could have done things a bit better here and there but at the end of the day, I’m happy I was able to finish these pieces without letting my perfectionism get the best of me!

Painting for someone else with a goal in mind was helpful for me. Plus, my sister was supportive and excited which gave me the confidence I needed to get them done. The BF was also very encouraging throughout the process. I enjoyed jamming to some music while I painted and drinking wine. Whether you consider yourself a painter or not, I recommend taking on an art project in your spare time. It’s a comfortable activity because you get to do it in your own home with comfy clothes on. Plus, you can choose when to work on it and can listen to music, watch tv, and enjoy a glass of your favorite drink!

If you’ve crafted anything for a family member or friend before, I’d love to hear your experience and see the result! I’d also love any recommendations on art techniques to try out.