I consider myself to be artistic but not creative. By that I mean that I have a good eye for design and can usually make things look good but I am not great at coming up with original ideas. This is most evident in my job as a newspaper page designer. Once people give me the pieces or a concept, I will frequently put a page together and then when I am done, I will notice that I accidentally created a striking balance in the elements or will have natural flow for the eye to move its way down the page, etc. But when it comes to projects such as painting or drawing or even gardening, my intentions are nobel but execution somethings struggles — things just don’t look quite right sometimes.  My mom is amazing at this kind of thing and I have a ton of art — mushroom toll paintings or embroidery — she did in the ’70s that I love.

Anyway, I needed some new art for my walls, particularly the living room. I nabbed up some cool stuff at an art festival when I was in Phoenix visiting my sister Gretchen and brother Kevin and his family. But I needed a big statement piece for over the couch. Big art can be expensive, and I am poor. To Pinterest I wandered. I found some cool canvasses that looked easy to make — simply lay silk flowers on a white canvas and spray paint. I can do that. WRONG. The paint bled through the silk and the canvasses just ended up being basically one color. Good thing I have all of that white ceiling paint hanging around. I took some and basically ended up painting the flowers in by hand. If you don’t look too closely, they look pretty good. But another classic example of things not turning out “quite right.” oh well.

Testing them out on the back of the couch to see if they will do. Seems fine. Sorry I am a lousy photographer.

Don’t look too closely, but from a distance they look ok.

I slide them all together to make them look like one piece.