A Horse With No Name

While recently researching online for a simple DIY art project, this horse silhouette popped up and it was love at first site.  It's a discontinued item from Pottery Barn that was priced at $199 smack-a-roos. 

 

 

 

Taking a mental inventory of supplies needed, I realized that I could probably complete this with little or zero $$$$.  Now that's my kinda project! 

 

 How Do You Like Me Now

 

 

 

 

Ride A Horse Save a Cowboy

 

These songs kept running through my head....

 

 

First, I researched online for a horse silhouette and found several.  Once a choice was made, it was downloaded into a pictures file.  Trying to figure out how to make it large enough to be impressive took some extra thinking on my part and I was not patient enough to wait to have an enlarged copy made at the office store.  Did you know that when you move that little rolling thing on your mouse over a saved photo that it will increase or decrease in size?  I didn't know that, but I do now!

 

 

 

 

 

After using copy paper and taping it to the monitor, I traced a portion of the horse.  Then move to the next section, taped on another piece of copy paper and trace that part.  Needless to say, lots of tape and several sheets of paper later, I had a large version of a horse silhouette, but it was worth the sacrifice.

 

 

Remembering that I had some packing paper that would be large enough to use as a template, I retraced the horse again. See it on the door below?  This paper was too thin to use as a "reversed stencil", so contact paper and poster board were purchased.  (There goes the budget.) Using tape to attach poster board and contact paper (at different times), the horse was retraced again. 

 

 

There were left over boards from our great room ceiling that I would never through out, because, being the "almost hoarder" that I am, we might need it one day and guess what, it was needed!

 

 

 

It's a tongue and grove board and we had to use some braces on the back so the boards wouldn't wobble to and fro. 

When I say we, I mean E. 

E's my Sous-Crafter and my husband. He also cut them to the size so I wouldn't cut my fingers off.  He got to use the table saw...arr, arr, arr or what ever Tim the Tool man would say.

 

Once the boards were stained, my canvas was ready!

The stain was left over from a rental house reno.

 

 

 

 

Being concerned about the paint leaking under the poster board into the groves of the wood, I decided to use the contact paper version and carefully made sure it was really stuck in those groves, before and during the painting process.

 

 

Using some SW Antique White latex flat paint left over from another project, I dry brushed the paint onto the board, being careful to only stamp around the outside of the horse instead of a back and forth method.  You can barely see the outline of the contact paper horse.  By the time I got to the bottom of the board the top had dried, so adding the second coat was a fast process.  It only took two coats and I wanted a rustic look.

 

After peeling off the contact paper, I used some sanding blocks to rough up the edges and then used a very little bit of the stain from before to distress it. 

This entire project only cost less than $5 for poster board and contact paper.  Big difference from $199 PB version that's no longer available.

 

 

Didn't he turn out great?  I especially like the knots in the wood. 

Now he needs name and a special place in the house. 

 

How about A Horse With No Name?