Updating A Painting

I picked up this original art at a garage sale last summer (marked $5, bought for $1, nice). It’s a bit of a mixed media piece already – framed in wood (which happens to be permanently attached to the painting), it also has black grosgrain ribbon bordering the edge of the piece. I couldn’t tell you what it was painted on… but I wanted to say it was old cork board or thin plywood since it’s visibly porous and grainy, despite being painted an offwhite color (actually, I chipped off a piece of the surface accidentally and it looks like a woven material? Check out photo #4). Anyways, The plain black and white style didn’t work well with my current interior color palette, so after about 6 months of being indecisive on where the painting would best live in my house, I decided to take some creative liberties and make it really work for me.

I dug into my collection of leftover paints (from the actual painting of the house), and armed with a few small paintbrushes, I went to town. I started by painting a few of the flowers in the lower left (you can get a close up of that detail in the photo below), and then decided to include a subtle striped background. Since I’m currently loving the light bright blue that’s in the guest room, I chose that. The final details included filling in some of the fabrics on the dress, and giving the frame itself a fresh coat of white.