Today I am showing how I coordinate artwork with china in styling the tabletop of my dining room console table. When I do a tablescape, I like to have a colored canvas or two [stacked] in the room that coordinates, but does not exactly match, the china I am using on the table or the color scheme I have chosen.
To make this possible, [I don't own a lot of important pieces of art that I rotate] I slap paint on a gallary-wrap canvas to create my own.
This one is done more exacting with rectangles and squares instead of thrown paint. The three aqua vases here with the applied attached ceramic Chrysanthemums are from Anthropologie. The Mums are very fragile. Many on the store shelf were already broken so I carefully selected these. You will see these vases next week when I do an aqua tablescape for a dinner using Siberia white Oriental Lilies in the three vases.
For me, these paintings are very fun to make. They are not serious, just fun. The sizes I make are 48 x 24, 48 x 30 or 48 x 36. I place them over top of my standard 60" x 48" main canvas. I have made several of these in various colors--green, peach, purple, coral, aqua--and have shown them to you in past tablescapes. Lately I have been using my silver and gold metallic one as the base. Yes, I know without sconces the wall looks bare. I have an electrician to install them but no drywall guy yet. I will get there. Console and chairs are from my Swede Collection line.
I purchase heavy-duty canvases from Michael's crafts store. You can get the largest one for around $65 as they run a 40% off coupon each week on the $100 canvases. The first thing I do is prime it with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint which sells for $34.95 a quart.
This is Duck Egg that I am applying with a stubby brush to push the paint down into the canvas fibers. I am working on my back covered porch on the patio table. I was fortunate to be among a small group of women who was first introduced to Annie Sloan Chalk Paint at The Southern Institute of Faux Finishing in 2010 before the product was brought into the US from England for sale. It has since become a huge success and manufactured stateside. I also took a class directly from Annie Sloan when she came to Mississippi to teach. I decided to do this on my own, not something I learned in her class. I haven't heard of any other artist using chalk paint as a primer. So there you have it. Something new.
Here I am using French Linen on a 60" canvas applying it with a roller since the canvas is so big. I do two coats as a primer. Then apply my art paint.
Here is a multi-blue canvas done to coordinate with the French Limoges monogrammed blue-edged china. As you can see, I just smear the paint on any which way; it doesn't matter. Sometimes I put a pattern over the top like this damask or a fleur de lis. It is the secondary canvas layered over top of a silver and gold metallic canvas. I picked about 200 Daffodils from my yard to place in a pair of vases from Wisteria. The teacups are English Royal Crown Derby in the Lombardy pattern.
I have very few blue items in my house, having sold most of what I had, since I am no longer a lover of blue. A few exceptions are this set of monogrammed china and a set I use at Thanksgiving. I do, however, like turquoise and aqua because they have green in them. Even though it was blue, I did purchase this set because it hit the other love requirements of being French, gold embossed, high quality and monogrammed. It also had 24 dinner plates in mint condition which swayed me. I would have been in heaven if the set was aqua.
Sometimes I will layer on a painting of outsider art - no name works found at garage sales, estate sales or the flea market. If I like it, I don't care where it comes from. No snob here. I'll point those out when I use one.
What do you think?
This week I am linking to:
Centerpiece Wednesdays: http://thestylesisters.blogspot.com/
Tablescape Thursday: http://betweennapsontheporch.net/.
Show and Tell Friday: http://romantichome.blogspot.com/
Seasonal Sundays: http://thetablescaper.blogspot.com/
Summer
Photos: Swede
