apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

My boyfriends father was an architect, and we've got some of his projects from architecture school hanging on our walls - they even have the grades he received written in the corner, which I always think is pretty funny. For some reason I don't have any good pictures of them, but here's one from our old apartment: http://www.flickr.com/photos/13108435@N03/1355059059/in/set-72157601949075667/

We also have some artwork by my boyfriend's mother and his aunt - neither of whom consider themselves artists now, or anything, but the stuff they did in college was actually really good, and it means a lot to have it on our walls.

I've been trying to come up with a substitute for expensive original art for some time now. Since neither I nor anyone I know is artistically inclined, or has saved school assignments, my walls are still blank.

Those ARE beautiful. What a great way to honor the creative process. I'm inspired now to frame the lovely botanical drawings my mother did in school.

I like the paintings my 18 month old daughter has done at her daycare. The colors are very vivid, since she's basically plunking down thick blobs of paint on the page, and they're abstract since she's not yet old enough to compose pictures. I am trying to think of a good way to display them in order to draw out these features and not have them look cutesie. Suggestions welcome!

I want those bowls in the first pic!

I'm VERY curious what school these were done at? They are very similar to some of my color theory class assignments from the great John Fawcett's color class at UConn. I gave away many of them after school but now I need to see if I have more!

or perhaps Mary Armstrong's color class at Boston College?

that's a great idea. i need to rummage around my house and see if I have any of my color theory assignments for the blank spots on my walls.

I found a great black and white illustration in Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery -- I had it photocopied on good-quality paper, and then I had the photocopy framed (black matte under white matte, so you see a little border of black around the image, and then the white matte, and a black metal frame). It's in my current kitchen between the windows, right below a black and white clock, and it's probably my favorite detail in the place.

clancy--I think the trick with your daughter's pictures is to cut them down and frame them simply and cleanly, like in those thick black wood frames with mats from target. little kids' pictures are always identifiable as such because they usually on really big paper.

Hi, Kyle here...

Thanks for your comments about today's post.

To answer a couple questions and share some thoughts...

My brother did the color exercises and the class was at the University of Vermont in Burlington.

The bowls are vintage - I went through an enamelware phase and got these on ebay.

Clancy, I think one way to cut down on "cutesie" is how you use the matte. For these, I had a matte cut that substantially put the pieces off center from the bottom to the top, giving them a more modern feel. So that's another element to think about. Maybe do a really large matte with a small cut-out of just one part of your child's drawing so that you know what it is but it may not be instantly recognizable as such. Good luck!

Thanks,
Kyle

Something that is also fun to do is to take one picture/drawing/painting whatever and cut it into pieces, symetrical or not and then fram and matte each piece either identically or more randomly depending on your own tastes. I love the frames color studies. Wish I had the one on the left!Rfreeobie

On studio design class I was assigned to do 3 abstract interpretations of a site, one making a drawing using carbon; the second one with xerox copies of images I selected transfered into the canson with acetone and draw on top of that with my choice of 2 colors of chalk (pastels) and carbon, and the third one a collage of photos taken from the site. Sounds complicated, but those were the instrutions and it was really fun to do them! They all had to have the same dimensions (8" x 24"), and I was lucky to find some frames with those dimensions at Marshall's.