Creating Wall Art with flowers, an iPhone and a white background.

I am so excited to share my Wall Art creation process with you today! I am thrilled with how it turned out. And more importantly, I am happy that something that I created is now living on my bedroom wall! I have photos up that I have taken and I am proud of them. But this feels different to me.

In creating this piece, it feels like I went beyond a photo. AND, I combined my love of grocery store flowers with my love of photography to do something “artsy.” I realize that might sound silly or not very impressive to some, but to me it is.

I have a hang up about being an “artist.” It’s because I wasn’t the artist in my family. One of my brothers was the artist. I’m sure you understand. In lots of families, kids often get labeled. It’s not always a label spoken out loud but everyone knows it exists. You hear your parents or others say, “he’s the artist of the family . . . she’s our musician . . . he’s our athlete” or something similar. And then it just starts to stick. In my case, I was the family musician. I was praised and encouraged to play the piano. I loved it. But, I also backed away from anything visually artistic. Eventually, I became terrified of even trying to draw, paint, etc. I just accepted that I would never be an expert at it so why even try. (Actually, I kinda became a basket case when I even attempted to take a watercolor class for beginners a few years ago. You can read about it in my post Compare and Despair. It’s not pretty, but it does have a sweet ending.)

I love Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist Way. Julia taught me that I was a Shadow Artist. Notice I said was! But if I’m being honest with myself, I’m still in recovery.
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What’s a Shadow Artist?
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Julia writes “Many of us find that we have squandered our own creative energies by investing disproportionately in the lives, hopes, dreams, and plans of others.” In other words, a Shadow Artist is a non creating artist that kinda hangs out in the shadows of “real” artists helping them do their thing but afraid to do their own thing. Afraid to Be Seen. Afraid to even try.
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Yep! That was me. Big Time! And I still have lots of moments where I Compare & Despair, but they are becoming fewer and farther apart.

Now back to my Wall Art!

I love grocery store flowers. I take pictures of them all the time. Here’s a picture of the flowers I had on my kitchen table a few weeks ago. Check out the pinks!

I decided to take the flowers and do a quick little photo shoot with them on my coffee table. I do this all the time. My coffee table is white marble so it provides a nice white background. But any white background would work or even another light background. Here are a couple of pictures that I took with my iPhone 12. You can see the edge of my round table at the top of the first photo and on the right side in the second photo.

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As I was taking the photo, I decided it would be fun to take shots from above as you see in the second photo. I loved the shapes I was getting with the closed blossoms. I took lots and lots of photos but the one you see above was my favorite.

I decided to make a canvas photo of Photo No. 2 for my bedroom. To do this, I knew I needed to do two things. Crop the photo and tone it down a little. By that I mean, desaturate the colors. My bedroom is decorated with muted tones and I knew the bright pink would be too much in the space. Also, the photos aren’t enhanced. The pink really was that bright!

Here’s a look at my bedroom to give you an idea of the colors I was working with.

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To get the photo ready to be printed I did two things.

#1 – I used Lightroom (photo editing software) to create a mostly desaturated photo. I took the color out of everything and then added it back to the flower. I wanted the photo to be warm overall and the flower to be a peachy, pink color to match the pinks in the room but I wanted the greenery to be almost black and white.

#2 – I cropped it to a 4:6 ratio. I’m always amazed to see what cropping does for artsy floral pics!

To determine the size that would look best in the room, I put up a large piece of paper to visualize how big I wanted it to be. I was also working around a light switch that is in a terrible spot for putting up art. You can see it in the photos below.

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I wanted to order from the common sizes offered on the website. Custom sizes are more expensive and not necessary for this. I went with a 24 inch x 36 inch Canvas Wrap photo. The other detail I specified was for the canvas to have an open back. It would be a wood frame with the canvas stretched around the edges. That would allow for the light switches to be covered in the space behind the art.

I ordered my canvas from ProDPI because I use them for all my photography printing but there are many options you can find for canvases with a quick google search. And if you watch for sales, you can get canvases for 1/2 price almost year round.

Also before I move on to the final product, I want to point out that I could have used one of my “real” cameras to take the pics but it wasn’t necessary. The iPhone photo will be great resolution for the enlargement since I am doing 1) a Canvas print which adds texture and 2) this is a large floral which will look great even if there is a little lack of detail and 3) iPhone pics usually do great even at this size. Especially if you have a fairly new phone. You can do a google search on whatever phone model you have and see how large you can go with prints/canvases if you are curious.

Here is the actual canvas I received in the mail about a week after I placed the order. I love it!!! And I think I did a great job matching the colors in my bedroom.

And finally, this is how the canvas looks hanging on the wall. I have one photo where my room looks perfect which it doesn’t most days. I added the second photo of what the corner really looks like with Skeeter (white dog) and Maya (brown dog) taking a nap. They are unimpressed with my art. Dog treats and walks are what they get excited about.

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As I’ve already said, I’m in LOVE with how this turned out. It makes me smile every time I walk into my room. It also makes me proud that I am finally believing in myself more and more.

I hope you are creating your spaces too. ❤️

P.S. If you need someone to talk to or if your life is in transition and you need help navigating the next steps, I’m here for you. You can read about my Life Coach services on this page and schedule a free Inquiry Phone Call here.

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