Up Up and Away!

When we moved to our house we (finally) transitioned Asa from a nursery room to a child boy's room.  For four years his corner of our abode was themed after a woodland forest, complete with giant raccoon beanbag, forest animal crib bedding, matching forest animal name letters, small stuffed forest animals for decoration, and even framed forest animal pictures Matt's uncle photographed.  We love, love, loved his forest animal room.  The transition to a big boy room took some thought.

Practically, I knew I had a primary-colored duvet that was mine before we married and then in our guest room when we began with a twin bed in the guest room.  It was neither particularly masculine nor feminine, and the primary color scheme would allow us to theme bedroom accents after Asa's interests without having to change out themed bedding ($$). For some time now, Asa's most long-standing interest has been in the realm of "things that go."  So that pointed us in the direction of a vehicle themed bedroom.

Cars, trucks, planes, trains, construction, monster trucks, etc.  You name it!

We began with some accessories that were ready to hang--some of our old license plates (I love this nod to the states where Asa lived before now), some canvases and a valence I bought, a Lightning McQueen lamp we were given, a Cars Piston Cup trophy, a tire clock, all kinds of car and truck pillows on Asa's bed and cozy chair, and since this picture was taken we've added a traffic signal light on the wall to the left of his armoire (a birthday present last summer shortly before we moved).

I planned to fill in a few spaces on the wall with wall art I'd make myself.  In particular, this space above Asa's chair was lacking.

My original plan was to paint a firetruck across 3 large canvases and hang them on the wall spread out a little bit.  I put it off and put it off feeling a little overwhelmed about matching the style and colors in his other (purchased) canvases.  THEN I saw this picture from Pottery Barn.

I thought replicating it in a literal sense was probably beyond my talent and definitely beyond my time (although I just found THIS tutorial for recreating this realistic airplane version that looks pretty simple for anyone interested).  But I *could* take this idea and use it with a more childlike, stylized approach to go with the rest of Asa's room.

Thus began my search for airplane silhouettes online and using my Silhouette cutting machine software to trace various images until I found one that seemed like the right fit.

Once I had that settled, I took one of Asa's other canvases to the craft store to match paint colors.  The actual color is almost never like the sample on the lid or shelf, but I matched as closely as I could.  Asa's favorite color is green, so I decided to pull some greens out of his other artwork and play it up with this project.

I painted 3 16x20 canvases with a lighter lime-ish green--about 2-3 coats each with simple acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush for an even finish.  A little bit of the sponge brush strokes are apparent, but the overall image is SO simple I liked the feeling the strokes added.  Overall, I made the finish as even as possible though.

Then I took a deeeeep breath and set my Silhouette to cut my longest image ever--a 40 inch long airplane!  I cut the airplane out of adhesive vinyl.  Once it was cut, I peeled off the airplane and stuck it onto my canvases.  After burnished the edges the best I could to try to prevent the second paint color from seeping underneath the vinyl, I opened my darker green paint and started lightly painting over all 3 canvases.  I painted one canvas at a time, and I tried to initially move the sponge brush with the vinyl--sweeping paint over and away from it instead of toward it, where I might be more likely to push some paint under the vinyl.  Again, I painted a quick 2-3 coats on each canvas panel until I was satisfied with the darker green's color coverage.

I left the canvases to dry, but it didn't take very long.  The next step was to peel the vinyl off of the canvases, leaving behind a light green biplane (Asa's favorite kind of plane... maybe tied with "fire [fighter] jets")!

I touched up a few places a little big of green paint seeped under the vinyl, but overall the vinyl sealed MUCH better than I anticipated.  After leaving the canvases to dry overnight, I hung them in Asa's bedroom!  I *think* his sister might like the paintings better than he does :), but he does like them.  And they add some airplanes to his walls where everything else was car and truck centered.  I have one or two other wall art ideas to finish off his room for now (we'll be moving things around a LITTLE when we rearrange some furniture to transform the guest room into Lila's room).  I love how it's come together though, piece by piece!