If you follow me on Instagram you may have already seen a sneaky peaky of a few of these details… If not, then this will be fun and new for all of you! This wall needed some much needed gussying up and a store bought abstract art piece kicked off the project perfectly. I followed that beauty up with 2 DIY projects and one kiddo creation. Hopefully you can guess which is which, and if not, perhaps I need to reevaluate my skills as a Home Decor Art Creationist… eek!
That horizontal work of genius was created by my Monster Mash boy using MDF and acrylic craft paints. Such a great way to have a unique piece with importance. If you want some tips on creating Home Decor art with kids, I will share that soon, in the meantime just consider choosing the colors you want them to use to coordinate with your decor!
Materials: All you need for this art project is a canvas, either new or to be recycled, Black and White Acrylic Craft Paint and a Brush at least 1″ wide.
A breakdown of the other pieces in this gallery wall creation go a little something like this…
1. Abstract Painting purchased at Tuesday Morning
2. Black & White Abstract created HERE in this article! Yay
3. Horizontal kiddo creation
Truthfully I’m not sure I love this gallery wall in general. I think it is a bit to symetrical and a bit to matchy matchy for several of the pieces. BUT, I love the fact that this Black and White beauty is actually a fabulous before and after, if you will, since this is it’s second life as a piece of art.
Behold… the beauty that once was…
I loved this when I got it 6 years ago for the colors and the landscape scene but at some point shortly after I purchased it, the canvas itself became the value rather than the painting you see before you.The fact is, I scored this beauty for $10 on sale one day at Michael’s and I knew even then that once my heart grew tired of the look, the canvas would come in handy for remaking into something else!
My friends… that day came!
I gave this canvas a nice good double coat of White Titanium acrylic paint from DecoArt, my go to white for Home Decor paintings. It does double duty for me serving as a decent primer as well, even when you are starting with a blank canvas.
Be sure to cover your canvas thoroughly, especially if you are covering an existing painting. For this particular project a vertical brush stroke will work to your advantage, but I recommend having your first layer be horizontal and then following that up with a vertical coat (or 2 if needed). This goes right in line with the age old technique used for painting walls in a multitude of directions when laying down your base color to be sure you have proper coverage especially on a textured piece.
Now for the fun… run a couple of lines of black paint near the bottom of your canvas.
Blend up several inches and wrap the bottom of your canvas as well as the bottom portion of the sides. This will give your piece a more finished look.
Add a bit more and drag the color up about 6 or 7 inches in a vertical irregular pattern all the way across the bottom section.
Add a bit of white just above your black section and pull it down into the top 2 inches to create a gray section and blend well using vertical brush strokes as often as possible.
Add a bit more black just below the gray section and pull it up into the gray just a tiny bit,1 inch will do the trick. You simply want to be sure the gray overlaps the white in an irregular vertical pattern and that the black overlaps the gray in the same manner so that your painting appears to fade black to white in an upwards manner.
Note: if you want to pull down a few small streaks of black from the top as you can see I did, feel free, but this certainly isn’t required.
The top portion of this gallery wall…
And the bottom portion…
