Painting Blinds

As promised, my blinds.  And, again, I didn't come up with the idea myself.  I was working for peanuts at this little job shop.  The owners frequently took people-in-need under their wing.  One of these persons, trying to get back on their feet, was trying to sell artsy blinds.   It's been years so I may misremember, but they were maybe glass, definitely beautiful, and over-the-top expensive.  I lived in an apartment and was having house-envy like crazy, but knew I'd never be able to afford something like that.  Now, 20 years later, I'd not waste my money on such a thing.  But I kept the idea in my head.  

And I have this room.  It accidentally turned into a kids room.  Didn't mean for it to happen, but I bought the wallpaper and it's got flowers.  Then I painted some Pooh and Tigger pictures on the wall.  Then I saw a headboard made out of a wardrobe, and did something similar, but the top is a flower garden populated by some elegant stuffed animals.  Then Ken found some more Pooh prints.  Then a kitten puzzle.  Anyway, it looks a bit like a little girls fantasy bedroom.  So that's why, if I was ever to paint blinds, this would be a good room to try it in. 

Now, as to the "push" to do it -- I have these adorable curtains, again, with the Pooh theme.  I found the material cheap at Hobby Lobby (it's fleece lined vinyl -- think picnic table).  My mother-in-law hemmed them, then I got some shower curtain rings with clips, fed them onto a curtain rod and clipped the material in.  But if I try to close them, the dog can't see out.  And it's his solemn duty to watch the front yard.  I have repaired rips and replaced the curtain rods once already.  Nope, Pepper is NOT destructive, but if 75 pounds of dog lays on curtains, the rod will bend all to heck.  And if said dog needs to take off fast to greet his people when they get home, it's hardly his fault if his dog tag collar gets caught and rips the curtains!  Right?

So I think maybe blinds would discourage his obsessive lawn-watching and allow a person to get undressed without flashing the neighbors.  And I've always wanted to try painting blinds, so. . .

So, in March, I intended to spend my vacation painting blinds.  First, we put them up:

Place plastic behind the blinds.  We actually screwed them in with the blind's hardware, and tucked them into the window sill.   Would have worked great if the dog didn't still want to look out the window.  And we didn't cut the excess away, so, between the pup and I, we managed to tatter the plastic to non-usability.  

Then, pick a design.  I chose cartoons because of the simplicity of their lines.  I mean, the slats are only a couple inches wide.  I'm not too bad at freehand drawing, and I LOVE one-stroke, but because of the constant interruption of movement, I decided the simpler the lines, the more successful the end result.  Pick the complexity of your design based on personal capability and what you think will look good.  

For my design, I chose --wait for it -- a Pooh design (Eeyore).  In Pooh's New Adventures, the gang tries to cheer Eeyore up.  They nearly kill him.  In the end, Piglet's apologizing because he didn't do anything to make Eeyore happy.  Eeyore says he's not sad, he's having fun.  Then he shows Piglet how to cloud paint.  That's my scene.  

Using an artist charcoal pencil, rough-sketch your design:

Now, base-coat the design.  Be sure to lift the slats to get underneath them (you don't have to be specific with this, just don't have white or opposing color gleaming through).   Believe it or not, this is where I had a problem.  Because I couldn't get to it on my dedicated vacation time (I only got to spend two hours on it, aargh), I only got the background and the top layer of clouds done.  Then life was busy, and I couldn't get to it.  Then, the blinds that were supposed to be dog-proof proved not, and some of the slats were broken.  "I think I should just wash the paint off", I said to Ken.  "No, you can do this!  I'll help you replace the broken slats, we'll shorten it to the right length, and you'll get it done.", Ken said to me.

The problem was all the white space.  It was depressing.  What was in my head wasn't on the blinds.  And the blinds were not dog-proof.  But Ken had faith in me.  Darn it.  Now I had to live up to something.  

Now, finally, the fire under my behind -- I need a new quilt.  And I saw a cute one at Jo-Ann Fabrics.  They wouldn't sell me the pattern, so I'll just use the general idea.  But the paints were all over my cutting board.  I couldn't put them away - I had a plan and I'd never be able to find the paints back if I mixed them back in.  And I can't just move the paints somewhere else because I want my paints left together.  And, finally, I succeed at finishing my projects because I force myself to not start a new one until the prior one is done.  So, I pushed myself to complete the base coat:

And, just like that, it clicked.  I wasn't depressed, I wasn't discouraged, I was energized!  In short order, I added shading to my clouds.   I used the one-stroke style by Donna Dewberry(?).   Just look up one-stroke -- she has an awesome line of instructional books and aids.  I took a class at my local Michael's.

Next, I added drips of color (the color used to shade the clouds, white, and silver gleams) to look like color waterfalls.

Next, I used glitter spray on the waterfalls to add flow.  Then I added stick-on stars and splashes (splooshes?) because I love glitz.  

The next part was hard for me to get back to, because, while the rest of this was kind of impressionist in nature, doing Eeyore and Piglet was much more precise.  But the quilt was calling my name. . .

I used the artists charcoal pencil to scratch in the rough lines -- literally, since sometimes it was charcoal and sometimes it was a groove etched in the paint.  Then I just filled in:

Piglet's pale pink wanted to drip all over and the black and maroon were like sludge, but it all came together.

Soon to come is the quilt instructions -- since the top is already done!