project 1 of 25/NATURE BOY SCRIPT PAINTING

I have a small rotation of lullabies that I sing to Henry, and none of them are actually lullabies. Sea of Love is our song. I sang it to him all the time while I was pregnant, and as if the song was written just for us, when we were leaving the hospital, the song was playing in the lobby. That song never plays. It was the sign I needed to boost my confidence and know that this baby, right here in my arms in this wheelchair, is the baby I sang to, the baby I waited for. 

I was going to paint that song for him, but the lyrics are very short. I needed more words, so I chose our second favorite song, Nature Boy, originally sung by Nat King Cole (see? also not a lullaby).

I'm a canvas recycler and decided I was done with the yellow drip painting (pictured above) that hung on our walls. The canvas is huge - probably the second largest one that Michael's sells. I propped it up, popped a movie on, and started painting. 

I quickly realized that I would use a whole tube of paint in order to cover the previous layer, so I called on the can of extra paint from when we painted our master bedroom white. I was worried it would have too much sheen once it dried, but it looked great.

I used a pencil and wrote the words in a whimsical, kind of sloppy cursive. I knew if I tried to paint it without tracing the words, it wouldn't look right, and I knew it would look best if it was my own natural handwriting. To balance the shininess of the white paint, I wanted to use a more matte black, and luckily, I had extra chalkboard paint from when I made the chalkpaint cheese tray.

I had to go over the letters a couple times to get the depth I wanted. You can see that those bottom two rows (pictured above) are a little too light with just one coat. I hung the finished product over our dining room table, and it anchors it really well since the canvas is almost as big as the table. 

I'm linking this project to Remodelaholic's link party and Tip Junkie.

This is Project 1 in my 25 Projects challenge. I am attempting to complete 25 projects this year. Contact me if you are interested in sponsoring one of the projects or featuring an item on the blog.

Some links to products are affiliate links. This was not a sponsored project. That white pitcher is from Target and the kitchen table is from JC Penny Outlet (five years ago).