Deciding what to put on our walls has always been a struggle for me, which is why most our walls were empty for the first 2 years we have lived in this home. It wasn’t until this last year or so that I decided to take some chances and hang a few things up. The one room that has really given me trouble is our living room. We have paneled trim throughout the entire room, which I love, but because of this trim I also find very hard to hang artwork. Our living room is also very large so almost anything I hang up seems almost comically small in the room. The problem is larger pieces of art generally come with a steep price tag, which just is not in my budget right now when we are still in a season of renovating and are saving our pennies for the big projects we will have left to do (the in progress upstairs bath, master bath, deck/patio/landscaping… you get the idea).
A while back I created a DIY custom large scale art (for $30!) using a photograph I took on vacation in Washington. I love this print and it is currently still on our mantel.
If you don’t have any of your own photos you’d like to use there are great options like Juniper Print Shop where you purchase the print and print it yourself and Society 6 where you purchase a print and they print and ship it to you. I have used these types of prints throughout my home (like the Knots I and Aspens prints above) as well and love them!
Based on the images above you can tell I have incorporated a lot of prints into our home. I wanted to mix things up and add a larger piece of art to the living room that had a bit more texture! I saw Sarah of Room for Tuesday post about DIY diptych art and knew this would be the perfect DIY to try. Thanks for the inspiration Sarah!
I followed Sarah’s main tutorial, but with a few tweaks so I thought I would share how I completed my DIY abstract art.
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THE SUPPLIES
I wanted to keep the cost to $0 for myself, so I challenged myself to use only supplies I already had. This works out because I had an old larger Ikea framed canvas artwork that I wasn’t too fond of, so I knew I could repurpose the art by DIYing something different over top. If you don’t have an old framed canvas artwork like I did you can always purchase a new one. My first place to check would be the Homegoods clearance section. Ikea would be my second go to. Even if you have to buy a few of the supplies I would think you could keep the cost down fairly easily.
- Framed canvas of desired size
- Latex paint
- Paint brush
- Thick bristle paint brush
- Spray paint (if you need want to change the frame color)
- Painter’s tape (if you need want to change the frame color)
- Newspaper ((if you need want to change the frame color)
THE PROCESS
This is a very quick and very easy DIY. If you are looking for a large abstract art that can be created in an afternoon for minimal effort and cost, this is for you!
The framed artwork I was using for this project had a silver frame. I knew I wanted a gold frame, so my first step was to take my GO TO SPRAY PAINT and give the frame a quick spray. I first used newspaper and painters tape to tape off the canvas portion of the art. I then laid the piece on a piece of cardboard and gave the frame few quick and light sprays. I did this in my basement because it was freezing outside when I did the project but doing it outside would be best.
After letting the spray paint dry I removed the newspaper and painter’s tape and brought my painting upstairs where I had better light to complete the project.
Since we are renovating our house we have a lot of leftover paint from various projects. I knew I wanted the base of my artwork to be flat and wanted the textured portion to have a bit more sheen. For the base layer I went with Chelsea Gray in flat (color of our dining room) and simply white in satin for the textured portion (color of our kitchen cabinets). The key with the white paint I used for the textured portion is that it was a bit old, so it was a little thicker, i.e. I would no longer use it to paint anything in my house. If you don’t have old paint you could simple leave small container of the paint cracked open for a day or so in a safe location and that should thicken the paint up.
I started by painting the gray base layer with my trusty paint brush. After 30 minutes when the base layer had dried I started the top textured portion. I used a thick bristled paint brush for this part to add in a bit more texture. I simply went up and down and size to side with the white paint, purposefully trying to create some brush strokes and variations in the thickness of paint. That’s it! I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I tried to throw that mindset out the window for this project.
I like to paint, read I think wine and painting classes are fun, but do not consider myself an artist by any means. I was honestly so nervous to do this DIY. I thought there was no way it would turn out or that I would want to display it in my home. Well, it turns out I really like it and a bonus is that it was so easy to do! From start to finish this project took me 2 hours and most of that was dry time!
If you try it I’d love it if you shared with me how it went!
