Making My Kitchen Art SHOUT!

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I bought the mass-produced framed print on the right in the above image because I liked the midcentury modern shape of the vase and its contents. The vase shape particularly echoes the shapes in my dining chairs.

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It also ties in with the collection of retro vases displayed above my kitchen cabinets.

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However, the vase looked ORANGE in the online photo, which is my accent color of choice in my kitchen. But, as you can see, the vase is actually gold. Sadly, printer monitors don’t always tell the truth.

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I tried living with the print in its original version because I loved the shape of the elements so much, but the gold wasn’t growing on me. So instead of returning the picture, I decided to change the color of the vase. How hard could it be?

Getting started

First I set about removing the picture from its frame–a tedious task in itself…

…what with 10 double-screwed clips holding it in place. I removed just one screw from nine of the clips and both screws from the top hanging clip, and it slid easily out of the frame.

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Now, how to recolor the vase? I had an orange paint pen and some orange craft paint. I also have essential tremor, which means it’s hard from me to keep my hands steady. So I started with the pen, thinking I could control it better than a brush.

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While that was true–I managed to “color within the lines” mostly–the pen’s distribution of color was uneven. A lot, but not all, of the uneven quality disappeared as the paint dried. So I went over it with the craft paint.

Because I didn’t trust myself with a brush, I fingerpainted this on carefully. That evened up the visibile strokes some more, but the color was a little too pink and a bit flat. So I went back and mixed some of the orange (poppy) paint with yellow and fingerpainted that on.

Hubs thought it looked great, but I wasn’t so sure. So I tried my hand at collaging a new vase in textured paper to adhere over the paint, which meant I’d also need to do the same with the plant in the vase–a much more tedious job. I didn’t take photos of this process because I needed both hands and hubs was busy with his own work. But here’s what I did:

  • traced all the shapes with tracing paper,
  • cut out tracings to use as patterns,
  • laid patterns on wrong side of textured paper, and traced with a pencil, and
  • cut out shapes a smidge larger than pattern to cover any messed up painting

I used orange paper for the vase but at the last minute decided to do the plant in green instead of the original black. Then I…

  • cut out shapes with scissors,
  • laid them over the original print to see how they fit, and
  • glued them down.

I was underwhelmed with this result too. The green plant shapes were intricate to cut and some of the black edges still showed. Corners that should have been rounded had small angles to them. I was discouraged enough at this point to pitch the whole mess, but decided instead to take a break.

On to the frame…

My original intention was to jazz up the frame a la Kit Kemp, a British interior designer. Here are some of the custom-painted frames she’s done or had done:

Cool, huh?

So I tried painting random orange stripes on the solid black frame using a fan brush, and then dotting the orange stripes with white dots, but I hated it. It was so bad I didn’t even photograph it. Just take my word for it. The orange looked too Halloweeny against the black, so I wiped and sanded off what I could, then repainted the glossy black frame with a flat black spraypaint.

While the frame dried, I gave more thought to how to make it “shout” in concert with its contents, I decided on white checks–either on the frame face only, or alternating checks on face frame and sides. I decided I would need to tape off areas I didn’t want to paint to get a clean look rather than rely on freehand and my tremulous hand.

Adding the next layer

The paint would have to cure 48 hours before I could tape it, so I worked some more on the print. I still wasn’t satisfied with the textured paper alone; it looked unfinished and amateurish. And even though I tried to get the green plant parts to cover the black underneath, I didn’t always succeed.

That’s when I went to plan B…

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I decided to experiment with a more extensive collage process and began layering curvaceous shapes over the green base paper. I limited my printed overlay paper pallet to a set of origami papers I had with animal prints and ditsy leaves and flowers in greens, blacks and yellows. The above photo shows the early stages of the collage process.

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I finished up the plant portion before proceeding to the vase itself.

As you can see, this process, as it progressed, allowed me to hide the black areas beneath that the solid green layer didn’t cover. It also added more angles to the curves so it looked like they were part of the plan.

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Originally, I intended to add a greater variety of paper patterns to the vase and more sections of collage, as I did on the leaves. But the leaves added such great detail, I limited the vase palette to an orange-and-white ditsy and an orange-and-black animal print, both papers coming from the same origami packet used for the plant leaves–for contrast.

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With the print now doing the shouting–all of it welcome and good–I began to wonder whether the frame would be better off quiet.

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Both hubs and I agreed the picture a la collage looked so good it only needed the original, simple black frame.

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Now we have an interesting, one-of-a-kind collage in the colors desired instead of a mass-produced print.

There’s so much more life in the collage than in the original. Don’t you agree?

Here are wider views:

I smile every time I see it.

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Here’s to whatever puts funk and fun into your boho home!

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