close your eyes

the amazing twine photo frame i made the other day came from a mirror, which was held by this thin piece of wood/corkboard. i had it over at the house i am house sitting at and was feeling bored, so i started painting it a bit. then i had an idea to take all these poems i love.



so i printed up my fave poems: one art, love after love, jerusalem 1967, personal, and the day lady died. i had grand plans of painting the board and collaging all the poems on to it. but i started to do that and it looked like an epic fail


feeling dismayed i started painting the board grey because i find painting soothing and i had a huge bottle of grey paint. whilst painting, drinking a glass of red wine, and listening to the pandora station i like to call "i was born in the wrong decade", inspiration struck! james taylor came on and suddenly i was reminded of the song my dad used to sing me to sleep every night, "you can close your eyes." the part i always loved the most was the line, "well the sun is surely sinking down, but the moon is slowly rising." and i decided it would be a cute idea to try and make one of those big, block print wall pieces.

so i experimented on paper with different layouts and then realized i would need to settle down and not do the painting that night. i have a tendency to get very overexcited and want everything to do everything right away. so i contemplated on the different layouts.


the next morning i decided which layout to go with, and realized i would need stencils, so after scouring my mom's art room and finding no stencils in a font i liked, i went on a trip to michael's and bought $6 stencils.

given my need to practice patience and taking the time to do something well rather than just do it quickly, i stenciled all the lines out on paper, and then placed them on the board to make sure it would fit.


then i took a ruler and a pencil and measured out all of the spacing, then traced all the letters in pencil. finally, i got to the fun part and went to town with the paint, trying very hard to stay inside the lines :)

i wasn't sure what colors to do the words "sun" and "moon" in, so i decided to save those for last. eventually though, i decided on a burnt golden yellow for the word "sun", and a pale, dusty blue for the word "moon."

i can't get the silly photo to rotate, but i love the way the colors turned out and have it hanging over my bed in ann arbor, which i will take a picture of on monday!



and here is the moment you've been waiting for, a video of james taylor singing "you can close your eyes." and you lucky ducks, i was able to find an old school, long-haired james taylor crooning away. if i were carly simon, i would have fallen for him too!