Big Art On A Little Wall

So, somehow I got this bright idea. I wanted a wall installation. I know, it sounds CRAZY! My entry way has tall ceilings and I wanted to utilize them. The plan was to hang one of my favorite paintings, but just using the painting seemed ordinary. That's what you would see in a normal person's house. I wanted people to enter my front door and think WOW! 

The Original Painting

I began pondering over a few ideas. I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew it had to be spectacular. One night while watching Youtube videos looking for inspiration it came to me. I decided to create a frame around the painting, but then create a cool kind of wall piece off of that. So I sketched out an idea, and just went for it.

.

First, I had to make the base. I grabbed my 1x2s from Home Depot, and headed into the basement with my miter saw. I used my sketch and a protractor to figure out all of the angled cuts I needed to make. Now, my miter saw only goes up to a 45 degree angled cut. I figured if I needed anything bigger I would cut the other way. First piece went smoothly.  After that though, it was all downhill. Cutting the other way wasn't nearly as simplistic as I thought, and I am very good at math. Apparently though my geometry expertise was not as sharp as it was in the 8th grade. So I had to just take my time. It ended up taking a lot longer than the hour of time that I had allotted for such a task. 

Once I was done the shape did not look on the the floor the way that it did in the sketch. I remeasured all my cuts and angles. Everything seemed to match, but it just didn't look like it. All I could think to myself was 'You know I hope this turns out the way I want because this is a lot of time and energy for this to not work. I will be super pissed!'

This project seemed like a pain from the start. I was determined though. The pieces I am the most annoyed by seem to give me the most gratification in the end. After the frame was built it was time to move on to the face. I used the same lattice material that I used for the bookshelf. That basically was going to be the material for the remainder of the piece. So on my trip to Home Depot I loaded up. I KNOW those people thought I was crazy. Once again a 5 foot person leaving the store with 20 pieces of 8ft trim and maneuvering them all into my little Corolla. I make things happen though.  I always wonder what it looks like to people, and what they must think when they see me leave Home Depot. What would you think if you saw a woman in a Corolla drive by you with 8ft pieces of wood squeezed into it? I have realized I should probably never by a car with leather interior.

So at this point the frame has been made, and the face has been glued. I did notice one of my bad habits that has trickled to the garage, is using my car as a surface to rest things on. One of the reason I don't have a dining room table. It would never be used for eating. Just another big surface to lay things on.

It's time to design the piece in real life. I'm  going to do a combination of 1 1/8" pieces and 3/4" pieces. So, I moved it back upstairs because there is more space. I arranged the pieces based on my drawing. Can you believe I spent my Friday night doing this? The drawing is an exact scale of the actual piece, so it was easy to match up exactly where the pieces had to go. As I put it together each piece got a number to make it easier to replace after the pieces were painted. I also photographed it so I knew how the pieces intertwined.

 I spread the pieces out between the garage and the basement, and painted everything black. At this point I'm thinking I have to be crazy. Why do I put myself through this? What am I thinking? A wall installation? Am I crazy?! Why can't I ever be satisfied with just buying something. Oh wait I know why...because my name is Tanaira and it couldn't possibly be that easy.

It's time to finally put the whole thing together. I had to lay the base on the floor, and glue the pieces from the back. Problem is I need a flat hard surface. The carpet makes it hard to be precise. My garage would be the obvious choice except for it's not actually flat. It slopes towards the front. So that leaves one place. The kitchen. I know, I know you're thinking what the hell am I doing projecting on my nice hardwood floors. I'll be careful though I promise. I need to find something to put down.

 I found some giant post it notes at work and taped them to the floor. I laid the frame face down and placed the painting inside. I carefully measured the placement of each piece, and secured them with my glue gun. It worked out pretty nicely. Only problem was the sore muscles in the back of my thighs from constantly leaning over. (Must be getting old). I let it sit over night. When I got home from work the next day I flipped it over. It looked AMAZING! It was a lot of black though. I decided to add some of the color from the painting into the structure. I painted a piece of card stock for every color in the painting and placed it into one of the shapes. The only thing left to do is hang it. Now from personal experience I know that I need to go get some wall anchors. I definitely learned my lesson from the crashing medicine cabinet incident. 

So several hours, black paint stains on the carpet, 2 minor toes cramps, 1 major toe cramp, a paper cut, and pulled muscles in both thighs later we have my very first wall sculpture!

I'm so excited I could flip right now! It came out so much better, than I thought. It was worth every bit of effort I put into it. Glad it's done with though. Big pieces can be a pain sometimes because they're hard to contain during the creating process. I'm actually almost finished with the living room. Just a few more projects left. The whole thing turning out quite nicely. It's nice to see it take shape over the course of the last couple of months.  It will be nice when I'm finally done and can enjoy it. For now it's on the the next project!