Pottery Barn KnockOff – Work In Progress

Hello! How are ya? I’m finally back to painting after a week of fighting the flu, but I still feel like I’m walking thru sludge. Everything is a huge effort.

Which may be the reason why I didn’t finish this painting today. Or not.

I haven’t decided because up until an hour ago I really didn’t like the way the painting looked at all.

I’m using this Pottery Barn rug as my inspiration. Cute. Simple.

Shouldn’t be an issue. But it is was. I’ll know better tomorrow when I finish it up and then I’ll decide whether it’s a tutorial or not.

It’s hard enough fighting the flu without also battling indecision too. But then, that’s a daily thing for me. Indecision, I mean. Not the flu.

I sketched the branches on a piece of canvas. I didn’t copy Pottery Barn exactly – just the basic direction of the branch. Then I just made a bunch of ‘Y’s, like on the Spooky Tree tutorial.

Then I outlined the branches with a sage green . . .

. . . and filled in the blank spaces.

It wound up taking about 4 coats of paint so I wasn’t too happy. The only thing more boring than painting a bunch of blank spaces is painting a blank wall.

Blech.

But I knew it would’ve taken even longer to paint white branches on top of the green. Or maybe even longer to cut a stencil out of freezer paper or vinyl.

If I could’ve found my masking fluid I would’ve used that for the branches, but who knows where it is. I mean, I use it, like, once every 6 or 7 years so I have no idea where it is. And I just felt to yucky to get in the car and drive to the art store.

So I just sat there and painted green, and green. And even more green.

 

My boredom overruled my perfectionistic tendencies so I called it good-enough and penciled in three cardinals.

If this thing turns into a tutorial, I’ll make patterns for the cardinals and the branches.

I basecoated the cardinals with FolkArt Napthol Crimson by Plaid.

Now, any red paint would work but, believe me, it’ll take a lot of coats. Which is why I love Folk Art. For a craft paint, their colors have great coverage.

A little Antique Gold on the beak and some Burnt Umber on the birds’ faces and they didn’t look too bad. Even without shading or highlighting.

Then just a dot or two of White for the birds’ eyes . . .

I’m serious – just a dot of white paint.

And a dash of Burnt Umber on the beak.

Now – I’m no where’s near done with this painting. And I was no where’s near happy with it either. But right before I washed my paintbrushes I had an idea.

A sparkly idea.

It has to dry overnight but if it looks the way I think it will, I’ll share it with you tomorrow.

Oh, heck. . . I’ll share it with you even if it looks like crap.