Cowboy Nursery-- Cowboy Silhouette and Fence

I love how this paint job turned out. I really love that it only took me a few hours and I could do a little bit and go put my very swollen feet up for awhile without having to disrupt the whole process. We discussed multiple options for the fence from barbed wire to picket, but after looking at scores of clip art sites finally decided on this one: clip art

In all honesty I was hoping for a vinyl decal to slap up and be done but once I discovered there weren't any on the market that were up to my standards or in my price range, I manned up and committed to drawing this free hand.  I used a yard stick as my straight edge and drew straight on the wall with a mechanical pencil. I wanted this to look rustic, I didn't worry about it being uniform. The lines didn't have to be straight, or the planks identical. I followed the clipart as a general guide and just went for it. 

Once it was drawn on the wall, I went ahead and taped off the baseboards and got started painting. I tried using a foam brush but with the texture on the wall I quickly changed to a small bristle brush to make sharp edges.

I knew I wanted this sleepy cowboy as soon as I decided on the Cowboy theme. I grew up seeing these cowboy silhouettes cut out of wood leaning up against trees and houses but buying one was pricey and making one was out of my realm of DIY expertise. So I thought I would just free hand it too... until I found this pattern at amazon.com: sleeping cowboy pattern.

and it was like seven dollars, all I had to do was cut out the paper pattern and tape it to the wall and trace away! Once he was outlined on the wall, it took maybe 2 more hours to paint him. 

The painting in this room had the greatest pay off for me. It was an easy task and completely set the tone for my  Mac's Western Oasis.