When we re-did our dining room, there were a few things in there that we didn't quite know what to do with, that didn't really fit our taste or what we wanted our room to be. One of these items was an old canvas that someone had given Mr. B many moons ago, in exchange for carpentry work, I think. At any rate this Pollock wanna-be, with it's bright primary colors, more red and orange than anything else, unnerved me. It didn't have that chaotic harmony that I find oddly calming in a Pollock. It just didn't fit.
So off it went to the basement to wait out it's fate. Now you know I hate to see anything go to waste. I certainly wouldn't throw it away. I thought, "Well, maybe we'll have garage sale." That is until I did a little Pinterest-ing and realized I could re-use the canvas and didn't need to be particularly artistic to do so! I could jump on the quote-as-art bandwagon!
Such a simple way to create art and so easily personalized! We needed a picture of some sort over our bed and here I wouldn't have to spend a dime. I could use the Pollock-ish canvas and left over house paint! And I could have it say whatever I wanted!
I started by completely placing the canvas on the floor and covering it in 3 coats of white paint with a roller. The irony of laying the canvas flat on the floor to paint in an attempt to cover someone's attempt at Pollock's technique was not lost on me. Now I had a completely white surface, but not a completely smooth one due to the previous paint drippings. I was ok with that. I like the texture. It makes it less sterile.
Now, what did I want this piece of artwork, which would be above my bed, where I sleep, every night, with the love of my life, to say? I didn't want to merely copy my inspiration pieces. I did want to incorporate the idea of love into it, since that seemed appropriate for the boudoir. I thought it also might be nice to give a nod to the fact that we sleep in that room in whatever piece of writing I chose. I really liked the idea of using a poem as in the piece on the right (which showcases part of the e.e. cummings' poem "i carry your heart with me (i carry it in)"). I tried to think of all the love poems I have read throughout my life and whose words would be most apt for a bedroom. Then I thought, Neruda, of course! His love sonnets are some of the most beautiful, most romantic, most evocative poems ever written. But which poem to use?
This, of course, led me to an afternoon spent reading poetry, which to me is never a wasted afternoon. After some reading and some thinking, I settled upon a verse from the following poem:
Sonnet LXXIX - by Pablo Neruda
By night, Love, tie your heart to mine, and the two
together in their sleep will defeat the darkness
like a double drum in the forest, pounding
against the thick wall of wet leaves.
Night travel: black flame of sleep
that snips the threads of the earth's grapes
punctual as a headlong train that would haul
shadows and cold rocks, endlessly.
Because of this, Love, tie me to a purer motion,
to the constancy that beats in your chest
with the wings of a swan underwater,
so that our sleep might answer all the sky's
starry questions with a single key,
with a single door the shadows had closed.
So beautiful! I decided upon the opening line's request, the first eight words. I love the image and it fits my criteria of being a love poem and having something to do with the purpose of a bedroom (get your mind out of the gutter, to sleep of course).
I decided to freehand it partly because I didn't want to deal with stencils and partly because I was impatient to see how it would turn out. I did, however, measure the canvas so I could see how much space I had to work with and I wrote the words in pencil before painting to see the entire phrase.
You can barely see the letters, but I assure you they're there!
So I began. But part way through, I decided that the black and white would look too harsh for our bedroom. You'll note in the inspiration pictures that the one on the left has an antiqued white finish and the cumming's poem is so tightly written that there isn't a lot of negative space. I decided to start over. So on went the white paint again.
Now what? I rummaged through our left-over paints in the basement. First, I decided to paint the background the pale blue that we have on the ceiling in our bedroom to tie in more smoothly with the bedroom palette. Then I used the fabulous grey that we painted our guest room/office for the letters. This color scheme was more soothing for our bedroom than black and white. I used a basic round-end brush to paint the letters and did touch-ups with a regular Purdy brush.
Since I was writing freehand, I tried to keep my hands relaxed and maintain a smooth line to the letters so it would look natural. I then went over each line to fill in any gaps.
coming along nicely
Since my canvas was 40" H x 60" W, I had a little over 13" of height for each line. I marked approximate letter placement in pencil prior to painting. Which is not to say there weren't errors. Please note the "t" in tie; I originally started my "t" too far up on the canvas and tried to make it look like a purposeful flourish. Then since none of the other words with "t" in them had that flourish I added it, only later to determine that it looked ridiculous. You can see my deletion of said flourish here.
bye bye silly flourish!
This is how it looked when I was done:
I know it's a little off-center, but I don't care. I love it anyway. (I'm a little off-center myself.)
And on the wall in our bedroom:
