Personal Touches

In August, just after attending Amanda’s wedding, I packed up and made the drive from Indiana to Pennsylvania to help Mike get settled into his new home. We had done the initial search together back in July, and although I wouldn’t be making the move to PA as well, it felt nice to go through the process together and help Mike put his stamp on the place.

 I lost the battle on curtains. He deemed them unnecessary, and although I insisted that they would really complete the room, I had to agree that they weren’t totally necessary since he already has blinds. But I got him to make the switch from a comforter to a duvet and coverlet, add a little end table along with a mood lamp, and pick up a masculine-chic throw. 

After getting all of the furniture situated, we took to hanging photos and artwork. We had about twice the amount of wall space to work with if not more since he upgraded from a one-bedroom apartment to a two-story townhouse. His favorite piece of art from the Detroit Institute of Arts made it into the living room above the sofa along with his map of the London subway system which we hung above the TV. The window-pane picture frame I gave him for his birthday was filled with photos of us and hung between his two six-foot tall windows, and the 1920s lithograph of a bull walrus that I gave him last Christmas was nestled in the corner, just left of the couch. That left us with one key spot on the wall opposite of the windows.

In my own apartment I’ve hung some of my favorite photos that I took during my time in Taiwan. I wanted to showcase them while reminding myself and my visitors of some of my favorite places and things. I have a calligraphy piece that a former colleague in Taiwan made for me, a really cool paper cutting that was also gifted to me by another Taiwanese coworker, my Chinese name written by one of my college Chinese professors and close mentor, an oil painting of fall foliage that I bought in Taiwan when I walked into a restaurant and my heart nearly burst when I saw the vibrant reds and oranges and instantly yearned for home, and my favorite thing of all time, the four water color paintings I bought outside of the Neolithic Museum in Xi’an. They were done by farmers on scraps of paper, and they’re so simple yet so lively. I paid the equivalent of about $12 USD for them, which was probably still way more than I should have, but a complete steal considering how much they mean to me. My aunt had them framed for me for my birthday when I got back from studying abroad, and when I moved into my first apartment, 4 years later, I couldn’t wait to hang them on the wall.

So, personal art means a lot to me. I know Mike feels similarly about art in the sense that he doesn’t believe it should just fill space, so I wanted to think of something meaningful we could add to his collection. I suggested that we make our own canvas. Mike said he’d like to do something related to Detroit, and when I told him it would be totally doable to do the skyline, he seemed both surprised and genuinely excited.  I was inspired from this little number here that I read about a while ago on Everyday Reading.  So I got to work finding an outline of the skyline.

Once we found one we liked, we got to work on purchasing the materials. We purchased a primed canvas and assorted acrylic paints and brushes. We chose black for the buildings, white for the outline, and red, orange, and yellow for a more abstract sunset. We sketched the skyline onto the canvas in pencil using a straight-edge, and then I tackled the buildings while Mike painted the sky. We had a difficult time finding a brush thin enough to give us a clean line, and the paint pens we bought were good, but it was hard to control the flow of the paint. Since we had to paint the buildings first before we could do the outline, we were also trying to work around wet paint, but we were pretty happy with the results. It definitely has a homemade touch to it.

Our Masterpiece

And for someone who swears he has not an ounce of artistic capability, I thought Mike did a great job with the sky. It was fun creating something together, and I think he was kind of surprised at the outcome.

I recently saw this on Pinterest, and would like to make something similar for my next canvas project. For our one-year anniversary, I had a subway sign made that included places, things, and dates that have held a special meaning for us over the past year. (We're hanging it up this week and I'll be sure to add a photo! I'm really happy with the results!) I chose the color palate of charcoal grey and white to match his bedroom linens, and I am thinking of inverting the color scheme for this upcoming canvas. If you’re interested in purchasing a sign of your own, you can check out the seller Jen Shuck and her shop RusticPineDesigns on Etsy.