The Stick

In case you haven’t gathered this by now, I have a tendency to hold onto random objects that I deem useful for long periods of time before the perfect idea hits me. Same with this stick. I had been holding on to this stick for a little while but I knew I wanted to do a concept where something was hanging down from the stick as a wall hanging type piece. It wasn't until I found these little heart decos (already with the screws in them. Sweet.) in the boxes of junk in my garage that I knew this stick would finally be put to use.

For this piece, I wanted a more indie/boho vibe so I chose to paint geometric patterns and lines on the stick. Lines, squiggly lines and dots ought to do it. With the hearts, I painted them a solid color first. Then I took some white gesso and did a splotted, almost frosty look. With a few of the colors I also did a little bit of splatter painting because let's face it....splatter painting is fun! Around the sides of each heart is a word, relating to the Fruits of the Spirit. I originally wanted to just write them on with a pen but the pen didn't work. Great. So I hand painted the words on with a fine point brush. This tested not only my patience but also my ability to hold a brush steady.

After the painting comes the assembling! Huzzah! This means the project is almost finished and I personally like to go get a snack at this point in time (everybody works differently...mine usually involves food breaks).  So, I dug through my embroidery flosses to find the right color to match the overall feel I was going for. In this case, I wanted to emulate twine (but waaaaaay less hassle than twine) so I used a tan color. Luckily for me the hearts already had eye hooks in them so stringing them onto the wood was a cinch. I set out everything on the floor so that I could gauge how long I wanted the strings to be. Setting everything on the floor makes much more sense to me than trying to do everything on the wall or while holding it up.

I probably should mention that before I strung all the little hearts onto the wood, I found the most natural balance for the stick. Meaning, how the wood naturally wanted to go. This made hanging up the piece incredibly easy because then I was able to hammer two ordinary nails into the wall and the stick would balance perfectly on those two nails.

I want to do a project like this again because I really like how it turned out. Nice and snazzy. Maybe next time I will do it with paper airplanes…..yea. paper airplanes sounds cool.