omg ombre

The other day I enjoyed a crafty break from thinking about 'The Move' and 'The New Job'. After spending the weekend packing up what I think might come in handy for weekdays in Sacramento and moving it all into the little apartment I wanted a break from organizing, planning, packing, putting away, you name it.  

Monday when we got back I was catching up on some blog reading and came across some really cute art made with paint chips. Hmmm... what better way to have art with exactly the colors you want? Genius. I also really liked the repetition of one shape in different colors and the gradient from light to dark across the artwork. The other great thing about paint chips besides coming in almost any color imaginable, is that they come in color families. For each color Behr has cards with darker shades (4) and lighter shades (3) of the same base color. That makes forming gradients really simple. 

I had a few canvases languishing in the stash cabinet so decided to pop over to Home Depot to pick up some paint chips. I also decided (with Mom's help!) on a star shape and found myself a paper punch. I think part of the visual appeal of the artwork is that all the shapes are identical, and I would have gone batty trying to cut out a bunch of stars exactly the same. Also I would have probably been unsuccessful. Paper punch it is!

The whole project was easy and downright fun. I punched out all of the stars in one color first and then decided on the six shades I wanted to use that gave me the most appealing (to me, of course) gradient from light to dark. I used foam sticky circles from the scrapbook section of the craft store to affix the stars to the canvas, and voila! Star art. 

I found it best to lay out all of the stars first and then pick each one up to add the sticky bits and put it back in its place. That way I avoided alignment issues from row to row and my stars were evenly spaced across the canvas. After auditioning several options, I decided to alternate the orientation of the stars across the rows but leaving the columns in the same orientation. It looked the most appealing to me probably because it minimizes the white space and nests the stars nicely while still having some order to the layout. 

When Dave got home I ended up going back out to change the purple... I had sort of thought the original one I picked had far too much pink in it, and Dave agreed. But after that slight detour, I now have these three lovelies to find a place for in the new digs, and it was quite a relaxing afternoon and evening of zoning out and getting my art project fix.