How-to: Paint like {fill in your favorite artist}

The saying goes "It's love the makes a house a home." I know this because at age 11 I had to cross-stitch that saying for a 4-H competition and with that much face time a phrase it gets embedded into your memory. While love does its part, I find that elements like furniture, rugs and wall hangings do quite a bit to make the home cozy as well. Daniel and I are slowly collecting furniture and artwork we like, but it is definitely a slow process. I am not a patient person and therefore decided to take matters into my own hands and create 'interim' artwork. Let me make a few quick notes regarding this decision: 1) I am not an artistic person 2) I have never painted in my life 3) when you go to the art store and you actually pick up the how-to sheet entitled "How to paint with acrylics" and it begins with the sentence "Acrylics are paints..." someone working at the store should slap the supplies out of your basket.

With these points in mind, I thought the best approach would be to create a series of multicolored stripes on the canvas and call it a day. I pulled out all my newly acquired supplies and started the first stripe - not so good - but I thought I would straighten it out with the second stripe...the second stripe was equally bad. It was clear the approach was going to have to change and become fool-proof. A few more supplies and this is what I came up with - painting for uncoordinated dummies:

1. Assemble the materials: 1 prestretched, gesso-primed canvas; paint brushes, acrylic paint, painter's tape (you can get the tape at a home improvement store)
   
2. Measure out stripes of various widths on the canvas. For this I measured from the edge of the canvas certain increments and made little tick marks in pencil to make sure my lines would be straight
   
3. Place the tape on the canvas to frame the stripe you want to paint
   
4. Paint the stripe.
   
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until finished.
   
6. Stand back and admire your handiwork and definitely appreciate good examples of painting in the future.

My masterpiece in progress