Drop Cloth Chair

Alright, I've had this project in the works for about a month. I don't know why its taken me so long but it did. Actually it didn't take long it just took me a while to photograph it as a "finished" product :)

So here it is and all its glory!

Alright, this chair has come a LONG way. The first week we moved my mom, aunt, and friend came up to visit and help me with whatever I needed help with. Originally it was painting, but in our family we never do what we say we are going to do. We decided to go thrifting instead!  

These are our fabulous finds!! The ladder from the Ladder Light ,  gas can that will be made in to a side table, the medicine cabinet for the bathroom, and the broken chair that I have made unrecognizable!

(The thrift shops up here are the best I've ever seen! I got all of this and a few other things that my mom, aunt, and friend picked up ALL for $20!!)

So here is the chair. It was sturdy just a little worn and missing an arm. My aunt is the one who made me get it because she has a matching one, also missing an arm :)

I knew it wouldn't take much to make it look like new so I chopped off the arm. And sanded them down to a matching hight that wouldn't poke you in the legs when you sit. 

Once I cleaned it up some I decided the cheapest way for me to cover it would be a drop cloth. So I got a 9x12 ft drop cloth from Lowes for about $10 bucks and started at it! I wasn't so sure how to do it at first so I played around with what the best place to make my first cut would be. I ended up landing on draping the corner of the fabric over to cover the back. And then I went to town with some stables!

Yes I recovered this chair with a drop cloth and staples... It works!

Then to cover the corner and make sure it looked pretty I used the gift wrapping technique. Just pulled to the side and made a tight corner then pulled it down nice and tight to staple. It took a little fidgeting to get the top fold to look nice so you have to play with it a little. Then to finish the side I folded the remaining edge of the cloth over and used no sew tape to avoid the staples! 

I was so proud of that side of the chair. It was a huge boost in convidence to wing it and have it looks so nice and smooth :)  But this next part got a little tricky to photograph so I will do my best to explain. I flipped the remaining amount of cloth over the top of the chair so I would pull it tight around the bottom of the back to staple. 

After flipping the chair back to the upright position I cut the fabric along the base of the back leaving just enough fabric to pull tight and staple. I pulled the fabric from the back to the front of the chair stapling underneath the back and then pulled the remaining fabric to cover with a finished edge using no sew tape.

And then again used a similar technique as wrapping presents to finish off the side of the chair. Unlike the other side it didn't have the finished seam of the drop cloth so to make sure the sides matched I cut a piece of the seam off of the left over cloth and then again used no sew tape to attach and finish it off. 

 

And for the bottom I just cut a square of the drop cloth slightly bigger than the seat and notching out where the legs would be. 

Then I flipped the chair so I could see the underside and pulled the fabric tight and stapling. I rotated around making sure that no one side had more staples in it than another all while checking the top to make sure it is pulled tight with no bubbles or ripples. I think that rotating while you staple helps keep the fabric taught and even across the surface, but i'm sure you could do that other ways too.  The corners got a little tricky so that was pretty much just pull and staple as much as it needed. 

But to make them look more finished I rolled the corners of the fabric under, stapling tight, and the hot gluing in place so that it wouldn't move around and show the fabric underneath. 

Here is the finished chair! Well the covering part at least. It honestly didn't take too long at all and it wasn't hard either!. I'm really happy with how the drop cloth looks and think leaving it like this would have worked just as fabulous as what I ended up doing to it. 

But being bored coupled with just moving I couldn't leave the chair alone. I wanted to have some other creative project other than painting the house so I decided to paint the chair :) I love flowers I think they are beautiful so I picked some of my favorites and did my own rendition of them on the seat and back. 

And then I STILL couldn't leave well enough alone! I had the chair sititng in the living room for atleast 3 weeks and decided it was just too "pretty" for me. As much as I love floral I don't really have traditional floral in my house anywhere. I have lots of floral inspired patterns int he living room but they all have a twist to them. So I decided to add my twist to the chair once more :) 

I went and got the sample Valspar paint from Lowes and picked out the brightest green I could find. 

Celery. 

I love it! I think it added just the right amount of flare to this chair. totally more me. Sadly I don't really need it in the living-room. It fits fine for now but I don't think I'm going to be its forever home. 

It was a fun project and I can't believe how far it came from that broken chair at the thrift store. 

 

Painting Class

This semester I am taking a few studio classes along with art history, art and philosophy  and working with a few Life Science students to add art work to the new science building on campus. 

Because I am taking so many non studio classes I wont have too terribly many projects to share with you other than painting and sculptures. 

So here is my work from my beginning painting class! 

These first 2 paintings are done on 5x7 canvas board using unidirectional mark making. 

Each is of a still life set up in class and we had about a day for each of them. 

I've hardly ever painted with oils and I was very hesitant to learn ( Just love my fast drying acrylics!). 

However, these 2 paintings where a good start. While it was frustrating to mix some of the colors it really taught me so much in how to SEE color! 

In both of these I chose to paint a white eyelet pillow and a white and black pot lid. 

However, for the painting on the left we were not allowed ot use black and we were told to really look for the colors and to not have any pure white or pure black anywhere on the canvas! 

This was hard, but as you can tell I was able to find some color :) 

This was the 3rd painting in the class. We spent about 2 class periods on this 11x14 canvas. 

Again it was another still life where we were asked to not use any pure white or black. 

Even though I was painting a black cloth, black suitcase, and 2 white jars I obviously found some color coming from the warm and cool light that was falling over the space. 

Now this is our first real project. 

We finished it about a week ago.

This canvas measures 18x24 and we had to build them ourselves!

I forgot to document that process for yall but hopefully I will have another chance to share it before the end of the semester!

Basically, we buy pine board cut them to the appropriate pieces nail and clue them together

and then stretch our canvas across it using stables and then finally cover it with gesso. 

Once it was built we moved to a new colorful still life. 

Again, we couldn't use pure white or black but because most of the objects were a bright vibrant color it was some what easier to see the colors through out the objects. 

 Here is the still life I chose. 

Fake sunflowers, 

a champagne bottle

wooden box

fake apple 

yellow table cloth 

and a plastic striped cloth. 

This image is a close up detail of some of the striped cloth and apple (unfinished). 

And the image on the right is the studio!

Its crowded and covered in paint. 

In the bottom corner is my pallet. 

I actually really enjoy using a pallet (mine is just a sheet of glass with taped edges) 

but it makes mixing and saving the colors so much easier!!

TA DAAAA

My finished painting. 

It is now hung in the hallway at home. 

(thats why the lighting is kinda off... sorry about that)

I've enjoyed this class. 

Sometimes it can be relaxing, once I get in to the painting and the stress of the drawing is done. 

I hate that I wont have the chance to take another painting class here at Clemson

but I think I'll continue working in this style at home :) 

PS. I just wanted to say thank you again to all my new followers! 

And to all of the Fabulous blogger ladies who have featured me on their blogs recently! 

You can check me out on Just A Little Creativity 

and What Meegan Makes!