This summer I was decorating a small space that has some large blank walls, and I wanted to share one of the pieces that I made. 

My goal was to create something colorful that felt a bit western and wild. So, I started with the photograph above and turn it into…

This!

I love it. It’s hard to photograph art on a large wall without it still seeming like maybe the art is a touch small and there’s a lot of white space. But trust me, IRL the art on this wall looks amazing. You can see in the image above that this space has some rustic features, like the stone around the fireplace. I wanted to do something that played between those rustic features and a more colorful and modern space.

Bison Art!

Scrolling between the original photo and the samples below, you can see that I played with the color of the image. All of that work was done in Photoshop. I imported the original image and then played with the “posterize”, “threshold”, and “selective color” adjustments.

Some drafts were close to the original image, which could have been great, but I loved the moody purple sky and sharp silhouette of the bison in the last image. Plus, the pinks and yellows tie in with the rug and other accents in the space.

Once I had a final image, I increased its resolution in steps by 10% at a time until I had something with enough detail to create the largest print that I could reasonably order. In the end I used Shutterfly to print out a 30 x 40 framed canvas image (with a coupon, never forget your coupons when going this big!).

The original photograph for this project came from our day trip to Cheyenne. That was such a fun trip that it still comes up in conversation – especially the part where we road the train to see the bison! I’m so happy that now we have this customized piece of art as another memory of that day.

And that is that. Can’t wait to share more of this fun space with you over time!