Painting The Night Away

In our master bathroom our color scheme is supposed to be blue and brown, but you wouldn't know that by just looking at it other than the random towels in the baskets in the bathroom. So! I decided to bring in some blue and brown action with some art on the walls! Well, I couldn't find what I wanted so I was going to take the fabric I used in this post and wrap it around some canvases to make some cool, easy art. Unfortunately after looking at the colors intently and putting the fabric up on the wall, Blake and I decided it just wasn't quite right. So, we set out to find something different! We had already bought the canvases and didn't want to return them so we settled on painting a picture! After some debate about what to paint (including a bird, stripes, a tree, and a couple of other things) we decided to paint a tree. And off to google I went, where I found this image:

I picked up some acrylic paint from Hobby Lobby in Light Blue, Dark Brown, and Khaki and these 11x14 canvases from WalMart (husband not included) ;)  

We decided we would do mirror colored images after Blake played around on photoshop a bit... 

...so we could determine what we wanted to do without wasting a canvas! 

So Blake would do a light blue tree on a dark brown background and I would do a dark brown tree on a light blue background.

Here's how Blake's got started:

......aaaaand that's as far as he's gotten so far. It was pretty late when we started this project so Blake took a nap and said he would finish his the next day...that was 2 months ago lol

Here's how mine started out:

Notice the tree picture to the right of the canvas...I am like the least artistic person ever so I definitely couldn't do it without something to look at. I wanted to use that as a stencil, but I don't have an exacto knife yet so I would have had to cut each leaf and bird out by hand with scissors....so I just used the picture as a reference!

I went in stages with my painting and I highly recommend that! Also, I would just used the smallest brush you have in your pack to do the whole thing. I think mine would have turned out better had I not tried to use the medium brush on the branches...anywho here is the picture play by play:

I started with the trunk and main branches that everything else branched off of. Unfortunately I didn't do my branches just right so I had to adjust a bit, but it kept things interesting :D

(def wish I had used the small brush on this part)

Then I added the "vines" which branched off from the main branches but still had things coming off of them: 

Next I added all the extra leaves and swirls: 

Then I added the birds in the khaki color! I thought it would give it some dimension and I like how you have to look a little more closely to see the birds :)

I really like this a lot! And it's not too bad for my first attempt at DIY art, right? Of course I would love to touch it up and somehow take an eraser to some of the massive branches, but I think the little imperfections give it character! Once Blake finishes his, we'll hang these up and I'll show you what it looks like, but for now they are chilling in the living room floor...poor things!

Have you guys tried any DIY art? Did you use a stencil or go free hand? How did it turn out?