The Shelf

I've had this unpainted shelf for about 2 years now, not quite knowing what I wanted to do with it. Finally, I decided that I needed it in the kitchen and that it should be barn red. I started painting it a few days ago and just couldn't decide what kind of a detail or design I should paint on it. I started with a brown vine and white berries...but that looked so boring. I needed inspiration, so I headed here (which I tend to do often) to wander through Anahata Katkin's art. I remembered something I saw on her blog back a while ago that I loved and hit her flickr page to track it down.

This is it - I just loved it, stared at it and wondered, "Can I paint something this colorful and funky and actually make it look good? No patterns, no real design, just making it up as I go?"

Obviously it looks nothing like Anahata's work, but she was my inspiration. Her work screams "Be not afraid of bright colors that you wouldn't ordinarily think go together" and "Don't be afraid to get messy!" I was sideloading and overloading colors so that orange showed through turquoise and pink and by the end of it, every color on my palette had every other color mixed into it.

It was creative abandon!