Inspirational Canvas Art

My typical process for finding and doing new projects and crafts usually involves cool ideas staying open in tabs for a week, spending a few more weeks in a bookmarks folder, and then finally just maybe I'll get around to gathering all of the materials if I still want to do it.  My canvas art project followed this path closely and ended up taking forever to finish because I kept running into road blocks.

Not knowing what kind of challenges I would have, I knew as soon as I saw the original post on elise blaha's blog that it was a must do project.  It quickly got delayed though when I decided to wait and borrow art supplies from Allie instead of buying paint, brushes, and a canvas new.  I did end up having to wait until a cabin trip, when we would both be home. (I'm totally giving away how long I've been "working" on this, it's bad)

The next delay was completely due to laziness and forgetfulness because I needed to pick out stick on letters to use.  I wanted pretty letters that were at least an inch tall because the canvas is pretty big.  I originally thought the canvas was going to be too big, but I liked how it looked in the end.

After I got the letters, cut them out, and laid out on the canvas I thought it was going to be a quick and easy finish.  Yeah, right.  Turns out that scrapbooking stickers do not stick to canvas despite being great on paper.

The letters a and n in the lower left corner were my starting point and they curled up and did not adhere to the canvas one bit.

Discouraged, I did a bit of internet searching and found out that contact paper would probably stick to canvas.  I didn't want to cut out the letters by hand so I decided again to wait until I was home so I could mooch off of mama.  She has a sizzix machine and several alphabet sets which I hoped would suit my fancy.

Thus over Christmas vacation, while Allie tried to best my glitter ornaments, I cut letters, peeled them, and painted my canvas.

DIY tip: Tweezers were the best tool for peeling the contact paper and accurate placement on the canvas.  Not wanting to free form the letters meant I had to forgo punctuation because the sizzix sets didn't have any, so I'm choosing to ignore that minor flaw.

I know the paint looks blue here, but really it's much more purple like in the picture below.

 I let the paint dry for a few hours before peeling off the letters with the tweezers.

The "y" had some paint bleeding, but very minor!

Paint bleeding under the contact paper was a concern and it did happen a bit, but I think it adds a hand crafted look to the project.  The bleeding was minor and from a distance you can hardly see it.

On the Walls

One of the hardest parts about moving into a new space is feeling like it's really yours and we like to combat that feeling by getting stuff up on the walls.  So over the last week I've been working on getting some color and fun up on our poorly painted white walls.

Thanks to Allie we have our canvases from Greece stretched.  No more ridiculous thumb tacks holding them to the walls, yay!

Across the doorway from this painting are our masks from Sri Lanka.

And if you look through to the kitchen, I hung up one of my favorite posters.  This was part of the British culture event back in March and I tracked down the event coordinator and convinced him to let me have this poster.  I really wanted it to be framed instead of thumb tacked to the wall, but with everything else going on to get the apartment spruced up new poster frames are a low priority.

In the living room we hung up this poster of Delicate Arch, from a hiking trip Steve and I took a few years ago. 

I also hung my favorite new clock up in the living room.  We had one like this in college and it was always a great conversation starter.

The second bedroom is coming along slowly, but I did put up a clock and our diplomas. 

The only thing I've done in the bedroom so far is to add my name blocks to the dresser, but there is a lot to go on the wall, I'm just still in the process of getting it all ready for hanging.  We're hopefully going to end up with a collection of prints, paintings and photos hanging on the wall across from the bed since the wall is completely empty right now.

The Photo Series: Art Portrait

Steve's just so darn photogenic.

The Photo Series: Greek Lion

This was a beautiful statue we saw in Athens, at the Kerameikos Archeological Museum.

One Last Athens Update

I thought we had covered all of the highlights from our Athens trip, but then I realized that I forgot to show you what we brought back with us.

One of my main complaints about our apartment is that it doesn't feel like us. If I had to pick furniture, paint colors, and decor this place would look completely different. I'm so not a brown and tan person.

So we spent some time wandering around shops in Athens looking for some wall decor that would make this place feel more homey.

I really wanted something that would remind us of our trip and be pretty at the same time so, after much looking, we found this:

We also found another painting which I absolutely loved, so Steve got it for my birthday present.

When we get back home we'll have them restretched so they look like proper canvas paintings, but for now we'll enjoy them as is.

*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*

Athens: Day 10

More archeological sites from Athens today.  We had walked by Hadrian's Library at least three times before we managed to take the time to go in and visit; part of the problem was that the archeological sites in Athens were normally only open until 3 pm.  We also walked through the Roman Agora visiting the Tower of the Winds.

Hiding in the grass around Hadrian's Library.

Marble columns part of the old Hadrian's Library.  This marble was different than a lot of the other marble we saw in Athens.  It had a very layered look to it.

Tower of the Winds, which was used to tell time in ancient days.  It used lines carved into the stone and the shadow of wooden sticks poking out of the top of the structure to figure out the time of day.

The inside was closed off and filled with scaffolding, so we had to settle for posing outside.

On the ground of the Roman Agora, which is different than the Agora we visited earlier in the trip.

Our next stop was the Bathhouse of the Winds which is one of the only bathhouses that has been restored and opened to the public.  We had another audio tour, which was both too long, and a bit boring.  The whole museum is only a small two story house, but if we had listened to the entire audio tour it would easily have taken several hours!

There were a few interesting aspects here, like how they heated the baths: passages under the floor filled with the hot air and smoke from the same fire that heated the water for the baths. It was also interesting to hear how, during the Ottoman rule of Greece, baths were one of the few places women could go outside the home, so they became the center of female social life.

The museum showcased some strange modern art as well.  This dolphin/whale piece was a bit strange.

This was kind of cool, however, having those huge eyes stare into you was a bit unnerving.

Steve on the second floor.  The ceiling was very decorative and the railing overlooking the lobby was teal! 

One ridiculous piece of "art" was a large image of "The Last Supper" with all the human heads replaced with various animal heads, printed on canvas. I mention that it was printed, because I didn't want to imply that the artist had the skill to paint a reproduction of the masterpiece, just the skill to cut and paste layers in Photoshop.

They had a cute model of the bathhouse on display.  I love looking at models like these, and they were in museums all over Athens.

Part of an archelogical site that was found when the city was building the metro stations.  Instead of stopping construction or moving the ruins away, they turned the site into part of the metro station.  History is all over this city!

*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*

Catch up on the rest of our adventure:

Athens Day 1 

Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia 

Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation 

Restoring Faith in Traveling 

Playing the Ethics Card 

Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit

Athens: Day 2

Roommate Antics

Athens: Day 3 Part 1

Athens: Day 3 Part 2

Athens: Day 4

Athens: Day 5

Athens: Day 6

Athens: Day 7

Athens: Day 8

Athens: Day 9

Athens: Day 2

Today was our fist day of real sightseeing in Athens, and it went quite well.

The free breakfast at the hostel was okay: boiled eggs, instant coffee, and toast with jam. It was pretty busy, so we ended up sitting outside on the patio. At this point we realized just how cold it would be, and decided we needed a bit more clothing. We took the metro to a street market, with many many shops and stalls. Steve got a hat, gloves and a scarf, while Abby only needed a scarf. We also bought a really nice street map of Athens. Navigation was pretty easy; all the streets are labeled at every intersection by little blue signs on the sides of the buildings, in Greek and English.

Market at Montistraki in Athens

A small piece of ancient ruins preserved in the middle of the public square.

We were able to find the Numismatic Museum, but it was unfortunately closed, probably due to money issues. How silly that a museum all about money couldn't afford to stay open!

So many of the buildings in Athens were really beautiful!

We next went to the Benaki Museum. There was no admission fee the day we went, which was nice. The museum has four levels of artifacts from prehistory to present. The museum also has a lot of new art showcased alongside the ancient artifacts, and sometimes on or around the artifacts. It was a very interesting experience, and a very cool idea. It helped to remind us that a lot of the old things were also art, not just old stuff. Some of the modern pieces were a bit weird or offensive, and unfortunately I think that was the artists intent in some cases. It prompted me to think about the nature and definition of art, which in turn made me thankful to be an engineer, where value is derived from objective usefulness, hopefully.

At the little cafe in the museum we had our first experience with the confusion of trying to pay for a meal. We just couldn't figure out what the secret code or signal was to get our check, or for them to take our money and bring the change. Perhaps their culture is just more relaxed.

After finishing our tour of the museum we decided to climb partway up Lykavitos Hill. The hill is the tallest in Athens and has a little church, Agios Georgos, on top. As we climbed the vegetation changes from evergreens, to super giant yucca like plants, to cacti! About halfway up we decided to just go ahead and climb the whole hill. I'm glad we did because the view from the top was superb.

Pretty foliage on the trail. Athens was so green and alive, which was a complete 180 from Saudi where everything is tan.

Climbing up the hill.

Bell tower on top of the hill. Graffiti was everywhere in Athens, even on cacti and bell towers.

A church in Athens as seen from the top of Lykavitos Hill.

Greek flag flying on the top of the hill.

A view of Athens from the top of the hill. The city scape was much prettier than that of Cairo.

A view of part of the hill.

After dinner we got some super great gelato.The store was closed, but the owner saw us looking longingly at the gelato, so he opened back up just for us. Gelato is to ice cream what Athens is to Cairo: waaaay better!

Abby had a hard time using the wax ear plugs, so the snoring Englishman kept her up most of the night. Steve highly recommends silicone earplugs, he slept just fine.

*Catch up on our entire Athens adventure by checking Our Travel Page, or our Greece tag.*

Catch up on the rest of our adventure:
Athens Day 1
Traveling Back to Saudi Arabia
Small Math Problems and 4 Modes of Transportation
Restoring Faith in Traveling
Playing the Ethics Card
Changing Perspectives on Cash v. Debit