How to Upcycle an Old Painting

This portrait has been in my basement for more than 10 years so I decided to pull her out and make some changes and update this old painting.

Story Time. 15 years ago I were pregnant with my second child and living in a super cute rental apartment in NYC. The apartment was *barely* a 2 bedroom. The baby was in the 2nd *barely* bedroom and there wasn’t really an obvious place to stick the 2nd child. With real estate rates at an all time low, we decided to look into buying a house or apartment. Nothing in NYC was in our budget but we could make the math work to buy a sweet house in Mark’s hometown in CT where we would go for summer weekends and holidays. When we closed on our first house, we still had an apartment in the city so I had to furnish our new place on a big time budget. My first stop was a local consignment store where I found the painting below for $40. I googled the artist’s name and didn’t come up with anything relevant but loved the style and colors of the portrait. It hung in our first house for a couple of years but never again… something about her felt a little *too* personal… too intimate. Until now.

It occurred to me the other day, that maybe I could make some alterations or updates to this portrait to make it feel less personal so she could hang somewhere out in the open. I was thinking something as simple as a chewing gum bubble or a swoosh of paint over her face. Thankfully I didn’t go with either of those options….

Replace the Background

When I looked at this portrait (titled “Aunt Rose” by the original artist), I have never loved the background… the yellow is a little too… yellow for me. So first thing I did was look for a pattern that could replace the background. I settled on this simple wallpaper (shown on the right) that I ripped into thin strips and modpodged in place.

I traced the outline of the figure onto tracing paper and used this outline to help me trace and ultimately cut out the strips of wrapping paper to be the right size for the background.

Add Details

With the yellow background neutralized, the next decision was what to add to this portrait to ‘de personalize’ her. I LOVE her face and her expression but it’s also the most personal part of the painting. I had this silly pair of floral sunglasses in my office so I traced them onto Aunt Rose’s face and painted those.

I didn’t take any great photos of this next addition, but someone on social media suggested a flower crown… I love the idea and thought I could paint it effectively so that was the next detail I added. I used a piece of tracing paper to figure our whether it would look okay and to determine the right placement for her head.

Painting Some Details on the Background

You can see on the photo above, that I also started adding a few painted details to the background. I really liked that the colors in this wrapping paper were a perfect match to the painting, but… I also wanted to correct for the white background by adding some color. The painting on the background was really an experiment but I think it works.

Giving Her a Snack

Obviously Aunt Rose would be snacking on Cheetos. I did google a bit to see some painted versions of this iconic bag which was helpful for me interpreting it for this portrait… the style is so loose and painterly, I didn’t want to compete with that with my embellishments. I also gave her a pride lapel pin which I didn’t document but you can see it in the finished version below.

Build a Frame

I gave the canvas the most simple frame. I miter the corners of 1×2 common pine boards making sure to measure each side separately since lots of canvases aren’t perfectly even on all 4 sides. I painted the outside of the boards with that fun apple green but left the inside edge unpainted so as not to compete with the canvas as much.

The new and improved portrait is hanging in our family room on one large wall adjacent to the foyer. I love the location, love the updated painting, love that this gorgeous portrait is no longer hidden away in our basement…. homerun.

Would you have painted over a portrait you didn’t like? Just to reiterate, I googled the artist and the painting and it appears to have been a local woman who painted as a hobby. I suspect her family gave this to the consignment store so I don’t feel as bad about my embellishments. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!