Today my sister came over, and we whipped up a painting to hang in her new apartment. Believe it or not it only took us a few hours to complete. You can easily make your own with a canvas, a paint brush, 1/2″ masking tape, and three colors + white acrylic paint. Just tape up your canvas every which way, paint a gradient of each color in the taped segments, remove the tape, and enjoy!
Yaaaay! It looks so good! :D Thanks for your help with it! :D
How easy and fun. Every so often I think I can be artistic and I completely get into it…. at least this one wouldn’t cost me an arm and a leg.
It’s gorgeous! What a great idea to use masking tape. You always have such inspiring ideas!
I love it.
This is fantastic!! Thanks so much for the lovely idea!
You ladies did a great job together.
Yes they did a great job . Just love how they did it . marlous job .
not to get into a ‘what is art’ conversation, or belittle this because crap damien hirst and other so called’ artists’ spew out isn’t even art.. but I would call this decorative design not an ‘art work’
that’s why so many people like say mark rothoko prints its really about how it looks in a room, completments the furniture etc.
artist – Yeah, that’s fair to say. Our goal was to fill some empty wall space with something that coordinates with her decor. Mission accomplished!
Go to a fabric store and buy a couple of yards of cloth that is too gaudy for clothing, but perfect for abstract art. Use cheap furring strips and corner brackets from Home Depot to make a frame. Stretch the fabric tight and staple it from the back.
Presto! A solution for that big empty space.
No talent required.
Wow, that really looks amazing. I’d love to have something like that on my wall, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it for a long time to come.
I would love to try this, but I have no experience or knowledge of painting a gradient. What’s the best/easiest way to do paint a gradient for this project?
And what is the recommended canvas? Anything? And the canvas is already attached to something to hang it? Looks nice.
Anyway, cool idea. I’d love to try it!
To paint a gradient you need white paint and another color of paint, let’s say brown. Squeeze a little blob of each color onto a paper plate or something similar. Start on one side of the taped off shape with brown and paint a small section. Then mix a little white into the brown on your paper plate to make a lighter brown. Paint that color on your canvas next to the 100% brown. As you move across the shape painting just continue to mix the brown with more and more white paint so it gets lighter as you continue painting. By the time you reach the opposite edge you should be using 100% white. Hopefully that makes sense. It’s kind of hard to describe, since it’s something you partially figure out by trial and error as you go along. :) You could practice on a scrap piece of paper before painting on the canvas to make sure you have the hang of it.
If you go to any art or craft store you can buy stretched canvases. They should also carry mounting hardware to hang your canvas on the wall.
I am wanting to try this project on two canvases I have. I am fairly talented when it comes to this kind of thing, but I want to understand what “tool” you are applying to the canvas in the picture in the upper right of the graphic with this post. Can you shed some light on what you are using and doing there? It would be greatly appreciated!
The tool is just a paint brush. It has a round tip like this:
http://www.dickblick.com/products/escoda-prado-tame-synthetic-long-handle/
WW: and you just used some white paint to apply the “streaks” to the already painted canvas. Was the paint area you were covering with that brush still wet?
Yes, the painted area we were painting in the photo was still wet. We did each taped off segment all at once without waiting for the paint to dry. It’s easiest to blend the paints into a smooth gradient when the area is still wet.
Excellent! That’s all I needed! Thanks so much for the additional info and follow-ups!
Sure! I hope your paintings turn out great! :)
whoah. it’s very easy indeed. looks amazing… ♥
I love that! Did you use acrylic for all of the colors as well? Is there a special brush that you would suggest to use?
Yes, all the colors are acrylic. Just use any brush you’re comfortable with! I used a round tip brush.
seeing this I have some great ideas that I could do for my spare bedroom. Thanks for sharing.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that I don’t know what acrylic paint is….
How does the paint have different shades? or do you just keep mixing it with white?
You just mix each color with more and more white paint to get lighter and lighter shades of the color.
Wow, that looks amazing. I wish you had a few more “in progress” photos. I love the mod look of it, do you think it would work as well with colors?
thankyou so much my one looks so good in my room thankyou!!:)
do you have any other easy art pieces if you do could you put it on here
Not off the top of my head, but I’ll brainstorm to see what I can come up with. :)
Love this idea. Thanks for sharing!
I have bought a few $100 artworks from Melbourne based artist Mendo (from Graysonline). Was better than getting in car, finding an art store, paying $58 in materials, making a mess somewhere in my house, cleaning that up and then realising it looks like crap :)
Why do I know this? Yes I did make an artwork! Never again. That took a day off my life, wasn’t fun and I earn more than $100 in a day.
Hope they go up in value :)
Yeah, if you don’t enjoy the process of making something yourself this project probably isn’t worth the effort. :)