Sharpie Art

Having Mom move out was a fantastic milestone for our family. We are so encouraged to see her out and about, doing her own thing and full of life. A consequence of Mom leaving, however, are bare walls that once held art work that she had contributed to the decoration of our place. Granted, our walls aren't completely devoid of embellishments. At the same time there are broad enough expanses screaming to the artist in me, begging to be filled.

I decided to start small, and then move on from there (especially with my embarrassing track record of spouting on and on about all the great ideas I have that I then promptly DON'T follow through with... can anyone relate?) So, in keeping with that mindset, and owning that a divide and conquer logic never seemed to fail anyone, I'm going to start with our small half bath off of the family room. Long and skinny (about 10' long and only 3' deep), the door opens up in the middle, so that the sink is to the left and the toilet is to the right. And in front of you, a huge, blank wall. That wall once housed a large, lovely painting of the Titanic (my Mom's deep love and obsession). With the door open, you could cast a side glance and be drawn into the majesty of Titanic at full speed in the open ocean. All this action framed perfectly within the doorway of the bathroom. Now, it's bare. Painfully empty of any point of interest.

The wall over the toilet also housed a smaller, beautiful black and white photograph of a sailboat.  It's a wall you can see in the mirror hanging over the sink as you (ahem) take care of business. More blankness.

I need to fight the desire to go berserk and fill every empty space on the walls. However, I will say that my aunt and uncle have a bathroom with a wall that is succesfully covered with various sized frames, filled with all sorts of marvelous pieces of artwork from over the years (whether purchased prints, paintings/sketches by my cousins, or trinkets from trips abroad). It's a beautiful, captivating treat for the eyes. My reality is, I simply don't have the funds or time to buy enough frames to fill the wall in that bathroom. I mean, I want to do a simple project. I want a craft that won't cost much and that won't take much time for me to see the results, right? So, maybe a wall of art the likes of Uncle and Aunt's bathroom will be an endeavor down the road. For now, I need to keep it simple.

I came across the brilliant art work of Jona Cerwinsk, who in 2007 took Sharpie pen to Lamborghini and produced a piece of art work that was truly captivating and inspiring.  The month of June in our family is rife with birthdays. A niece of ours has definitely blossomed into quite the artist and one of her birthday wishes was a pack of Sharpies so she could decorate her guitar. Wanting to feed her creative juices, I bought her the Sharpies.... and proceeded, with a Cerwinsk method inspired design, to decorate the paper I would use to wrap her gift.  The results left me dumbfounded that I was capable of such patience in creation or detail, to be honest:

Black Sharpie ink on silver holographic paper.  Created by Katie Wenta, June 2012

Though it would seem I've completely gotten off topic, I share all this because my mind was brought back to this June 2012 creation of mine. Why not come up with some similar art for the bathroom?  Better yet, I can use up pieces of an unusual collection of mine: paint chip samples.  I know, I know. I can't help it. I walk past the paint section of a hardware store and leave with a card-deck's worth of colors.  In this case, I have a great stack of colors that I chose to specifically reflect the paint colors of a water color my Bugaboo made when only a toddler. The colors just look so warm and inviting, I couldn't bring myself to toss the painting. And it currently has a place of honor in a frame. But it has yet to make its way to a wall. Most importantly, this colorway would look great in that 'galley' bathroom.

I'm thinking of decorating my small paint chip squares with intricate Sharpie designs, mounting them on some thin plywood I have (that I could prep) and then placing them up in a nice minimalistic style square that would create some interest on that side wall. It will be somewhat time consuming. But I figure I could decorate one or two a day, and that I don't need to decorate ALL of them.  Leaving some of them blank, I think, would add to the interest of the overall composition.  I just need to play my cards right, so to speak, to make sure that I achieve the visual balance I'm looking for.

I have sixteen paint chips, which will give me the opportunity to create a nice 4 x 4 layout on the bathroom wall. They likely won't take up as much space as the noble Titanic did. But I figure I can always visit my local big box hardware shop and snake a few more chips, gradually adding to the grid. The price is certainly right. Who knows? Maybe instead of scores of various frames with artwork from across the decades I'll have a grid work of various colors and graphics that create a visual delight for any friend or family member who finds himself/herself venturing into the restroom for his/her evening constitutional!

The sixteen paint chips inspired by Bugaboo's painting.