Welcome back to my piano art studio. Today I’d like to share with you something that came out of a day of cleaning and organizing.
Getting Organized
By the time I had taken apart 18 pianos, as you can well imagine, I had thousands of action pieces lying around. Actually, they were in boxes in the garage, and not easily accessible when I wanted to use them in the studio. My sweet husband bought me a 10-drawer crafting organizer. I had seen them but thought they were a bit pricey. He found one at a good price, and I love it! (May I have two?) It took a while to decide which pieces would go in the drawers, but by the end of the day, each drawer was both filled to capacity and labeled. I didn’t empty my boxes, but at least I finally had a selection of pieces that were now readily accessible.
Putting the Pieces to Use
But I don’t disassemble, clean, and sort piano pieces for the fun of it. If I don’t use them in my art, they serve no purpose. The same holds true for canvases. At one point I went crazy buying canvases, getting fully stocked up on 16×20, 11×14, and 4×4 gallery-wrapped canvases. Then all of a sudden, I decided to rework the things I’d been creating on the 4×4 canvases. I normally use them in sets of 4, but I got tired of having to hang all four of them individually. My options were to connect them or use a single 8 x 8 canvas. It would be both cheaper and easier to use the single, larger canvas, but that left me with a couple dozen 4×4 canvases and nothing to do with them. I needed a new idea.
Eureka!
An unopened package of 4×4 canvases was sitting idly by, not far from my 10-drawer organizer. On a hunch, I opened the drawers one at a time and pulled out any piece small enough to fit on the canvas: a hammer (minus the shank and butt), a jack, a few flanges, and a metal washer. With these arranged on top of the still-shrink-wrapped canvases, I also began brainstorming, searching for a catchy phrase that isn’t already overused in the market. I wrote directly onto the shrink wrap packaging, to get a rough idea of what the finished product could look like. While toying with the arrangement of these sundry piano pieces, I thought, “Without piano, my life would be in pieces.” With an emphasis on the words “piano” and “pieces,” this would be perfect!
Decoupage
Normally when I add text to my work, I do it freehand. But this time I decided to try something new (to me). In one of the many YouTube tutorials I’ve watched recently, I saw a lady applying a decorative napkin to a canvas using decoupage. I decided to try that here as well, only I’d be transferring letters instead of a picture. I typed up my phrase several times, experimenting with different fonts. When I found a few that I liked, I transferred (traced) them onto a napkin, then glued the napkin to the top of the canvas. I covered the entire surface with the napkin, although the wording was only in one section. This gave a uniform textured appearance all the way across.
The background is white, and the entire surface is sealed with a gloss varnish. The canvas is deep enough to stand sturdily on your desk or shelf, while a sawtooth hanger on the back also allows for hanging on the wall.
How can I make it mine?
That’s easy. Just click over to my shop and make your selection. In this listing of “Piano Pieces,” you’ll have a choice of a couple variations in font, since I couldn’t make my mind up on just one.
♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬ ♬
Thank you for joining me on this tour of the studio. I look forward to seeing you on the next one. Until then, I invite you to check out photos of my other work in the gallery. Enjoy the rest of your day!
Encore! Old Pianos with a New Song 