I was seven when my family moved from Minnesota to California. Our new house was a single story and the ceilings were high which meant there were very big walls. To fill them, my dad decided we'd need some "Big Art." His solution was to create thin wooden rectangle frames and staple gun fabric around them. They were huge (maybe 7×11 feet?) and patterned and colorful. I remember them vividly and I remember him talking about "Big Art" just as often.
In this house, I am working with the same thing – a single story home with some very blank, very good sized walls. In the future, maybe we'll be able to afford Real Big Art by a Real Artist, but in the meantime, on our budget, I'm taking a page from my parents and adding lots of DIY art to help make the house a home.
Which brings me to my two canvases. I picked up two 3×3 feet squares at a craft store during a half off sale (with an extra 20% off coupon). Canvases are expensive – especially the thick ones – and so I always wait for a good coupon or sale.
I let them sit for a day or two. Then tackled them, one at a time.
I knew I wanted abstracts and was encouraged by my success with this painting from early April. I also knew I wanted them to be totally different. One was going to be color. One was going to be black and white. One was going to be "blended." One was going to be shapes. They were for sure going to hang side by side on the wall behind the couch.
Just like my first abstract, I used acrylic paints and just sort of dove in. The pink and teal is SO different from what I expected it to be and the black and white is almost exactly what I had in my mind at the beginning. Super odd how that works out.
I let them sit against the wall for the weekend and after I got back from traveling on Monday I gave them a good look to be sure I was still a fan. Monday it was hard to tell. But Tuesday, after I recovered from my traveling haze, I decided I loved them and hammered two nails into the wall to get them displayed.
I've walked by them and tilted my head a good 20 times since and I really love the "BOOM" they are bringing into our house. The color one is connecting with the color over the fireplace and in my pinwheel painting that hangs on the TV wall. The black and white connects with all the black and white I have filling this house. They are not fancy. They're not famous. And they're certainly not going to win any art shows. But they are totally me, totally inexpensive and totally "Big Art."
We're one step closer to filling this home. My nesting obsessed brain is so thrilled.
p.s. the workshop I contributed to with Big Picture went live at midnight! Read more in the post below and sign up here.
enJOY it 
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