Friday, March 4, 2011

Michelangelo for a Day

While I was still back in Georgia, packing, and getting everything ready for the "big move", my Hunnie was here, in California, looking for the perfect place for us.  Everytime he would find someplace he loved, he would send me the web page and I would check it out.  I loved our new condo the first time I saw the pictures of it online.  I really, really wanted it.  But he had a place closer to the beach in mind.  So, with my fingers crossed for good luck, I told him to keep looking til he found the place that made us both happy.  Being the wonderful man that he is, he picked this place! 

He also had one rather large request.  He wanted me to paint the ceiling in the dining room with a blue sky and clouds. 
No problem.  Except that I'm a bit vertically challenged, and even with a ladder, this would be a hard job.  But one day while he was at work, I figured out the perfect solution and got to work on this little surprise for him. 
Once again, I gathered my supplies.  A little Folk Art Acrylic Paint, some large paint brushes, masking tape to keep from ruining the fire sprinkler and light fixture, and....my wonderful workbench!  I just covered it to keep from flinging paint on it and stood right on top of it to reach the ceiling!  Much better than a ladder, too, since I had some wiggle room to keep from falling off! 
It wasn't one of those "quick and easy" projects that we all love to do, but it only took me about two hours to fill the ceiling with blue skies.  To make it easy on myself, I double loaded my brush with Folk Art Light Blue and Wicker White and slip-slapped the paint on.  I would dip into Medium Blue every once in a while, to mix it up a bit, also. 

I really love the result.  It's just beautiful, from every angle of the living room and kitchen!  But of course, it needed the clouds. 

I have always found painting clouds to be fun and simple.  But I've never painted them quite this large before, nor have I ever had to paint them above my head!  Up for the challenge, I grabbed some more Folk Art and different brushes and set to work. 

I painted just one cloud at a time.  And, after every few minutes, jumped down off my workbench and looked at each cloud from several angles to make sure I had my spacing right.  This was hard, I won't fib and tell you it wasn't, but as I painted each cloud up in that ceiling, I got more and more excited.  My neck hurt from looking straight up all day, my legs hurt from jumping up and down from that workbench, and I was getting the impression that I'm just not as young as I used to be....hmmm. 

I finally finished it, though.  With just an hour left before Hunnie came through the door from work.  Clean up is always simple with Folk Art, just some soap and water and my brushes were good as new. 

Here's the end result.  I hope you like it as much as we do. 

3 comments:

  1. I think it's really cool that you did that. It's totally something I would do too. I love to paint and I did the cloud thing with a puzzle picture I did once of lighthouses in Oregon. I had all this space around the lighthouses and so I filled it in with blue clouds like you did with splashes of the darker blues. I love folk art paint! I just found your blog as I was looking for painting blogs. I love to paint.

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  2. I turned out lovely!....heavenly!

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  3. Vertically challenged but totally lovable :D

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