Super Mario Silhouettes

I have a five year old gamer!  Yes, he's five, and he understands all there is to know about video games (rated E for Everyone only).  And, there isn't a day that goes by that we, as a family aren't filled in on everything and anything going on in the world of Super Mario Brothers or Sonic the Hedgehog.  

In preparations for our new baby, coming late summer, we must put our two older children, Max and Emma (boy and girl) in the same room for a while.  I want to make this transition as easy as possible for them, so we are transforming Max's (the biggest) room into a room fit for a King and Queen.  Max will have the left side of the room for anything he would like, Emma the right side. 

Being that Max's world revolves around these Wii characters, I had a great idea, inspired by a pottery barn dinosaur creation and by a reproduction done by A Girl In The Air. 

First, I purchased a long piece of white pine at Home Depot and had a nice gentleman that worked there cut it into 12 inch pieces for me.  Then I painted one coat of off white latex paint in eggshell, because I wanted the grain to show. 

I found these silhouttes on the internet.  They printed out extremely small and I couldn't figure out how to blow them up directly on my computer/printer (I am technically stunted), so I decided to just free-hand from the pics.  Looking back, I wish that I would have used a lighter pencil stroke, but I remedied that later on, as you'll see...



I found some dark brown paint that I already had and added some water for a wash.  Painted it on, and then lightly wiped some away with a towel until I got the look that I desired.

I remembered that I painted a table and chair set years ago with primary colors, red, green and blue.  These colors were perfect for these specific characters...Mario - red, Yoshi - green, Sonic - blue.  So, I mixed the colors with water and washed them on.

I really liked the look of just the wash, but alas, the pencil marks were there (like I said, looking back, I would have used much lighter strokes).  I did try to erase, but it wasn't working.  Sooooo, I used each color (without water) to outline, and then added the character names to the bottom left.

All and all, this project cost me the amount for the wood...$7.  And, I still have a 12" piece left over.  My daughter is already asking for princess art for her side (the right side) of the room...so, stay tuned for that future project. And, once we find out if we will be blessed with a boy or girl, we will be re-doing bedrooms, so that project will be a blog entry or two...or three.  :-)

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