It’s been a long Christmas, New Year’s break and lots of togetherness with my brood—but enough is enough.  I haven’t been in my studio.  I haven’t made anything and I was going absolutely bonkers.  So, yesterday I looked at our back entryway (also stairwell to the basement) and I went to work on an idea I’ve had for a while. This project took me all day long and into the evening.

It’s a wall we look at more than any others in our home…coming and going all day long.  First of all, painting a mural and projects of a similar ilk need to happen when my lovely husband, Jeff is out of town.  No judgement honey, just the way projects like this have gone down for 25 years.  He was gone. I went to work.

I used all of the paint samples I had in the house and I tried Valspar Antique Glaze from Lowes.  (No paid endorsement here, but I will tag them in my post). The technique is very similar to my paintings on wood. My art always looks unfinished to me until I distress and give it an antique glaze. I distress everything, my jackets, shoes, boots and so on.  If I haven’t distressed it myself by years of use, I’ll happily take my power sander to it….speeding the process along.

I think it needs a hint of red orange someplace and that will show up this week.  For now, every time anyone walks into my home they be reminded of LOVE or as my son, Ellis said with a shrug as he saw the early stages of the mural, “whatever keeps your menopause at bay, Mom”. Indeed.