Painting

Maybe I'm just picky, but my choices of affordable nursery decor seem to be a dichotomy of totally baby (read: too infantile for even a kid) or too sophisticated (HomeGoods is for big people). As much as I like to decorate, I do a strive for longevity and practicality; I don't want to have to redecorate a space after a couple of years or have to get rid of kid things when the kid is older. I want the room to be youthful, yet still "fit" in our house. I also don't want to make the nursery gender-specific in case we welcome another child of the opposite gender in the future.

Right now I'm thinking about the walls, which I'm planning to paint butter yellow above the (nonexistent white) chair rail, and some sort of green below. And Lowes carries a line of zero-VOC paint (Olympic), so I can actually do it myself.

For what to put on the walls, I like the idea of abstract art because it isn't anything. (Okay, art snobs, I realize true abstract art is representative of something, but to most of us it looks like nondescript shapes of color. What I meant is abstract art is not Disney characters or lambs & bunnies.) I looked at some paintings on Etsy, many of which are too small for the space or cost more than I want to spend. Then Cheryl encouraged me to paint something myself. I'm all about outsourcing these days, but this is something fun and special that I can do for our child.

I'm still in love with The Paisley Handbag Fabric at left, especially since I found a stripe with the same colors (above) for the valance and crib skirt, so I'm going to try and paint the paisley on canvas. I got craft paint at Michaels to remove the hurdle of custom color mixing, and also found prestretched hidden-staple canvases on sale. Then I can do a cluster of four small paintings on the opposite wall, each with a different pattern (like the circles at right, maybe a stripe or plaid, etc).

My painting style tends to be rather tight (one of the few areas of my life where I am a perfectionist), and I want these to look painterly and imperfect, so I'm wondering if I pull that off without an instructor telling me when I'm overworking it. Add this to my growing list of projects.