Subway Art Gone Wild

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 This is a stale post.  Don't you smell the stank?

For fresh ideas and the newest new new stuff 

why don't you head on over to the blog we actually update.

www.b3hd.blogspot.com

Love to see you there.

Carry on as you were.

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So when I say subway art, I don't mean graffiti.
I mean that I've been on the Internets and seen lots of awesome font/subway sign inspired pieces.

When we moved into this place

I instantly fell in love with the art cut outs in our entryway

Photo (C) B3 Home Designs

That was, of course, before I realized just how expensive

not one, but TWO gigantor pieces of art would be.

Never fear

Being the cheap-o that I am

From the start, I knew I was going to "create something" for those spaces

I love Planet Janet Art and actually have done open studio with her

I knew I could never afford one of her pieces for the space

(though I have a scheme to get some of her smaller pieces for the space in between

But I love her open spirit of open studio inspiration

So I started thinking I would use the encaustic/collage technique to liven this space up

Thought half a second about how intoxicating/annoying beeswax would start to smell

in large quantities, on my wall, like that, for a long time to come

researched how much encaustics cost

(WOW!! Holy for the love of sanity!)

Realized we needed to go to plan B

In the meantime, Mr. Handy looked up stretching canvas online.

Because, really, even with my super Mike's coupons,

they just didn't have a big enough canvas.

Never fear.  That coupon went to good use on a pair of stretcher pliers.

Why yes.  Yes we did.  We built our own canvases.

One of the best tutorials is here by Ray Schloss.

Building the canvas frame was his realm.

We went to Land of Crappy Non-Straight Wood

(aka, Home Depot, Issaquah)

and bought a yitload of 2x2s and a couple 2x4s

the latter of which was a PLEASURE to split with a circular saw

free hand

because we don't have a table saw

nice

Mr. Handy was super concerned about positve reinforcement

So these suckers are heavy

But not "I can't pick those up heavy"

and really braced through the corners like you would not believe

That was the easy part.

Then I craweled around on all fours to actually, you know,

stretch the canvas.

I bought two 6x9 drop cloths

at the Land of Everything but Wood is Great to Buy Here

(aka, Home Depot, Issaquah)

And it took me, the non-math girl, about 17 minutes to convert 9 x 12 feet

to 108 x 144 inches

as I tried to figure out if I should buy one 9x12 or two 6x9 cloths

and I gave up trying to figure out

hence why I bought two 6x9 drop cloths

at $10 each.

vs 19.97 for the one and the extra work of having to try to cut a straight line.

The Expert DIY label is generally for the whole project

Any project that needs to be blogged in a billion parts is expert to me

but also, if you suck at math,

don't play with power tools

and have no patience for power staplers and scratching up your hardwoods

Then the patience level alone will bump this to expert. 

You'll see.