A couple of weeks ago I looked at my life list and decided to see what I can realistically tackle. I’m not paying off debt or kayaking with whales anytime soon. And one WAY overdue thing is Anoop and Neha’s wedding present painting.
Since the beginning, I’d had the vision of a tree. Some awesome painting in all the Neha colors: sage, teal, deep green, gold, navy, etc. I even knew where I wanted it to go. They have a blank wall in their stairwell that leads from the main level up to the bedroom level. Initially I’d considered doing a painting of the same size in each of their 3 stairwells. (They have one of those stacked townhomes that’s garage, living level, bedrooms, and patio.) I thought it would be cool to do all the parts of a tree, maybe kind of abstract: roots on the bottom floor, branches in the middle staircase, leaves at the top.
But then I got realistic and it had been almost 3 years since they got married and I hadn’t done ONE painting for them, odds were I wouldn’t be doing 3.
About a year ago, I went to Texas Art Supply for . . . something and ran across these watercolor boards that had a “cradle” so they already looked framed. I loved them and immediately knew I wanted to use them for Neha and Anoop’s gift. And then, you know, a year went by.
So I sat down a few weeks ago with my water colors and worked on a sort abstract painting of a tree. I didn’t like it. I put all my art supplies in the corner of the room. (Not put away, mind you, because I needed the reminder of what I should be working on.) Then I got this job in Austin and was like, Okay, if I don’t do it now I’ll never ever do it.
I went to Texas Art Supply on Friday to get the Aquabords. But I couldn’t envision it. Here’s basically what I went through before I came up with the final idea. This, by the way, is like my favorite thing ever: to walk around in an art store looking at textures and colors and papers and designs and playing with options in my head until the light bulb goes on.
- I’m thinking about 2 or 3 separate paintings that hang together and make up one image or one idea. But the Aquabords with the 2″ cradle don’t have sizes I like.
- I wander around looking at handmade nepalese papers.
- I go to the stationery area and look at thin papers that are super delicate, almost like pattered dryer sheets. I keep walking by a huge display of cards and “pouches” by this company and I LOVE them but it’s highly distracting. I envision Neha’s present to be full of rich colors and intricate yet subtle textures. NOT a clean vector image and lots of white space.
- I’m back at the Aquabords. I give up on the ones with a cradle. I decide to get the flat Aquabords, one 9×12″, one 16×12″ and two 7×5″ that will all create a long rectangle when hung on the wall 2″ apart.
Excellent. But I still have no idea what I’m going to do.
- I go back to the papers to see what I want to use for layering texture. I look at some of the Marsupial designs and decide that that’s what I’m using for inspiration when I design Keith and Sarah’s wedding invite. While in the paper, I decide that this is too much pressure, why don’t I just buy ONE small Aquabord, go home, paint ONE and see how I feel after that?
- Relieved, I put back all the Aquabords and paper and get one 4-pack of 4″ square Aquabords. I look at the Marsupial designs again. I wander over to the rubber stamp section to see if I can find inspiration there. Looking for maybe a tree. I don’t find what I’m envisioning (what? no Tord Boontje style tree branch stamps?) but I do see a big stamp of a pine tree branch.
- It clicks. I will paint a bunch–like 20 or 24–of these 4″ square Aquabords with shades of teal and then stamp the pine branch on them in gold.
And I laugh, because deep down I’m a graphic designer. All my lofty visions of texture and color and watercolor paintings are coming down to a bunch of squares with a repeated pattern. And it’s the first time this project has felt RIGHT.
So I went home and the next day did the whole thing in a few hours. Here are some photos.


And that’s that. At the end I decided to make the edges gold to give it a more polished look. And I’m happy with it. I think it’s going to look awesome in her stairwell.
As a side note, I haven’t given this to her yet. There’s every possibility she could read this before we have dinner in 2 hours, but I doubt it. She’s got a 6-month old.
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