The Perfect Pear(s)
We’ve slowly been making over John’s sister Emily’s nursery on a major budget and we’re back with another update. We already shared how we painted some modern vertical stripes…
… added large mirrors to open up the small windowless room…
… and whipped up a super easy no-sew bed skirt.
But what about art? We wanted something modern and graphic to hang in the room, but didn’t want to spend much money to get it. The solution? Why not DIY it? So I did. To the tune of zero dollars and zero cents. Victory!
It all started when Emily was given some hand-me-down nursery art from a friend who mentioned there was no pressure to use it or anything, just that she was done with it and wanted to pass it along. The blue color was a bit more pastel than the muddier gray-based blue that we had going on in the nursery, so Emily suggested that we repaint it to create something new. We even had some leftover wall paint from our stripe painting project so it really was a zero cost project (that was guaranteed to work with our color palette no less). Here it is before we primed it with some oil-based Kilz to prep it for repainting:
I was actually super excited to get back to my art school roots. Four years of it in NYC had me creating all the time, but in the five years since graduation I had slowly segued into painting rooms instead of art so I knew I was a bit rusty. The good news is that Emily’s modern nursery called for clean and contemporary art, so I settled on a simple two-color composition of three pears, which absolutely anyone can do. First I sketched the outlines of three not-at-all-perfect-and-that’s-ok pears in pencil on the freshly primed canvas. I liked that they leaned in different ways and were slightly varied in size for interest, especially since I was only going to be using two colors for a simplistic result:
Then I filled in the pears using leftover yellow paint that we had laying around from some of the stripes that we painted in the nursery.
Next I added a slate blue background (with more leftover wall-striping paint) which ties into the crib’s deep blue skirt for even more cohesion in the room. Here it is after the first coat (about half dry, hence the different shades of blue):
Another coat of blue paint along with a second coat of yellow on the pears had everything looking a lot more solid and even. And we love that three pears fit perfectly across the canvas since this will be Emily’s third child (and her son and daughter really got a kick out of picking which pear they were and which pear was for the baby on the way).
As cute as the new DIY art looks on that lovely cardboard outside on our patio, you’ll just have to stay tuned to see it in the nursery as we continue on with the makeover (next up: some storage, lighting and accessories to finish off the room). But that’s how we got some fun art for no moolah and next to no work. Really, anyone with a canvas (or even foam core, poster board or a piece of plywood) can do this project with some leftover paint. Just pick a simple shape (an airplane? an apple? a heart?) and sketch it out. Then fill it in with two coats of paint and add in the background in another color for a modern pop-art-ish result.
What about you guys? Made any fun DIY art lately? Got any other easy ways to decorate naked walls on the cheap? Let’s put on our virtual black berets and turtlenecks to talk about how you channel your inner artiste.
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Comments
I actually just recently did something similar to this. I have had this one piece of canvas art for a really long time. I loved the long slender look but I was tired of the picture so I painted it white. I wanted to use it in my office so it went for awhile just white until I decided what I wanted to do with it. I let my 2 yr old daughter finger paint on it in my room colors. I love it and I don’t think I will ever get tired of looking at now.
I LOVE the pears. I am going to have to get some canvas today and do some paintin’! I did the same thing with 2 old canvases (sounds weird in the plural tense).Canvasi? http://jessicasykes.wordpress.com/
Hey Erin,
That’s too funny. Those RSS ads have been there for months but it looks like Google has stepped up their game and added videos into the mix. So sorry if they bug ya but a girl’s gotta eat!
xo,
s
LOVE THE PEAR ARTWORK! yes, I too have stopped painting art and have started painting my house! It has been a loonnng time and I sure miss being creative and using my art skills as well. (BFA)
Sherry, I love that you got back to your Fine Art roots! Just like you, I have a degree in fine arts, but rarely paint canvases, and instead, I’m painting walls and furniture. Recently, I made the leap back to my old past time, and I whipped up a few little works for recent birthdays. Here’s more detail on that: http://www.yellowbrickhome.com/painting-puppies/.
Keep up the great inspiration!
It sounds like a few of us are in the same boat, with all of the time spent in art school going towards painting walls and being creative with our homes. I recently painted some graphic robot and space-themed shapes on the walls of my son’s new bedroom and started needle-felting little gifts and toys, too. Not exactly what I envisioned when I was taking out all of those student loans, but that’s okay. ;)
I forgot to leave the link to my blog post about my son’s bedroom:
http://salvagelove.blogspot.com/2009/07/bedroom-before-after.html
cute DIY idea and good job on the art project but I would of loved to see an elephant or two in place of the pears to tie in the bedding, just my personal preference:) can’t wait to see the end result!
love the artwork!
do you think it would work w/a few strawberries?
any ideas on how to draw them? my friend loves strawberries, so i was thinking of creating a piece w/hot pink and aqua (2 of her fav colors), but they’re not smooth like pears… any suggestions would be amazing.
ps- seriously love the blog! totally inspiring!
sara :)
Definitely! Just google “cartoon strawberries” or “strawberry drawing” to get ideas that you can model your custom art work after. I’m sure there’s a simplified strawberry illustration somewhere that will encourage and inspire you! Good luck…
xo,
s
I love this and want to create something fun with some leftover latex paint- will the latex work okay on canvas?
Hey Kiki,
Such a good question! We feared our blog would end about three short months after we started it (since we began blogging to document our kitchen renovation and wondered what the heck we would talk about once that project ended). Almost two years later we’re still at it, and lots of projects and ideas just keep popping up. Take this nursery makeover for example. We never thought that Emily would have another baby so we had no idea it was a makeover that we would get to take on… but the opportunity arose and we jumped at the chance! Here’s hoping new project and ideas keep inspiring you and giving you endless blog fodder. I’m betting they will…
xo,
s