Project Spotlight – Privacy Screen from a series of old paintings. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you know that I have painted a lot, and collected a lot of artwork. Not bragging. It’s just the truth. Periodically I enjoy switching out some of my older paintings for different ones, just for a change of pace…usually the small ones.
Then, what do you do with the ones that are like…say, 24″ x 30″. They take up soooo much room. What do you do, fellow painters, with all that work you’ve accumulated? You may not be able to sell it all. All it does is take up a ton of real estate in your closet or shed. But paintings in and of themselves aren’t just something you can easily find a second use for.
Until one day when I found this totally based idea for a folding privacy screen. This person was using canvases made from frames with printed fabric stretched over them. And it gave me an idea….
Using 6 paintings all the same size, and four brass door hinges and screws, (and a little skill and time) I ended up with this…
My late grandfather was a carpenter by trade, so maybe I got a little bit of that talent passed along the way. The stretcher bars you see on the first and third panels, were to increase the stability. I did use brass plates to line the canvases on top of each other, and to keep them from bowing out when stacked on each other.
Full disclosure: I painted over a whole “scene”, over the original paintings I did have. I decided to kind of replicate the big three panel sofa size piece with the color scheme and all.
Here’s my (now deceased) cat Sputnik with my work in progress. The strokes I made with my brush had a way of stirring him up to the point that he would keep batting at the other side of the canvas. in tandem with the long strokes I was making. It got on my nerves, but darn if he isn’t so cute I can’t stay mad at him for long.
Those pictures were taken awhile back with my older 4G Samsung phone so apologies that the quality is not the best.Just for grins, here’s another one of Sputnik and his “sister” Cosmo:
Now here you can see my finished folding screen, it is partially closed at this angle:
And here’s a different angle with the whole thing spread out: to reiterate, that’s 6 canvases each 22″ x 28″.
I think one onlooker said it reminded them of Halloween. Not too far off .The one thing I would do differently is to add risers to the bottom that would lift it off the floor about 4″. Other than that, I’m real proud, if I do say so myself.
