Emblem - well, sort of

The past weekend found me painting a bit in the herb garden. No, I wasn't painting herbs.  I wanted to address the imposing white wall towering over our little "salad bowl".   I am a self proclaimed Francophile.  I adore bumble bees, and olive leaves, and crowns, and wreaths - honestly, all things French.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate these French elements into an emblem of sorts, marking our time of curating the cottage.  I thought this little emblem would dress up the white carriage house wall. The only problem, I am not an artist.

Here's how I did it.  After deciding upon the elements, I drew a sketch upon a piece of plastic, to be exact a gallon size storage bag.  Then I used a projector to project the sketched image upon the carriage house wall.  Moving the projector forward, backward, to get the size, perspective I wanted.  It was 5 AM on Sunday morning....

After achieving the size I liked, I loosely penciled off the design onto the wall. 

I wanted the design to mimic a soft, shadowy sketch. I chose to paint the design using black chalk paint. Chalk paint is easy to work with; using water to thin it becomes translucent,  creating shadows, defining a little are easy with chalk paint.  Using it full strength works great to edge.  I wanted to achieve something simplistic. 

Once painted, I sealed the wall using Fixatif sealant spray. 

for perspective, the ladder is six feet, the emblem is about 4' square

While out taking photos for this post, my little inspiration stopped by for a lemon tree visit. 

Don't you forget to "stop and smell the roses"; I caught Puppy doing just that after we fed the birds...

Thank you for stopping by to visit me. Until next time, wishing you all the best -