DIY Graphic Colorful Wall Art

Well, just when you think you’ve got your 2013 all planned out and organized – the flu hits. And it hits hard. Quite the reminder that we are not in control, no matter how much we plan.

Today I want to share a DIY wall art that I did over the holidays as a personal project. I originally saw the inspiration on Pinterest of course! At first, I did it on a smaller scale and loved how it turned out so much that I decided to do a much larger version to be a focal point in my living room.  I wanted it to include lots of rich colors with no duplicates, so coming up with all those different colors was the toughest part.  It took about 6 hours total from start to finish, done over the course of a week.  It took about 3 coats of paint for most of the colors, some took 5 !!!  I had the hardest time getting the yellow to cover well, but I found that when I added a little white it did alot better. I was drawn to this wall art because it reminds me of a modern stained glass window.

I have a bad habit of starting a project and not having my camera handy to document the process,  so I just took pics with my phone. Sorry in advance for the crappy pics, it’s all I got on this one.

The process:

I purchased a back stapled canvas from Michaels (back-stapled are thinner & more cost effective, especially the larger they get).

I spray painted it gold – 2 coats. It dried overnight.

Using painters tape I created the design. Wherever the painters tape covered was going to be gold, and the spaces were going to be painted. (I think this would be really neat in vertical or horizontal stripes too).

I painted the spaces, each a different color. I had alot of paint colors, but not enough for all the spaces to be different. I mixed up some of my own colors by adding white or black to change the shade. Some colors worked better than others. Yellow was a major PIA, taking about 5 coats. I let it dry several hours between coats of paint, sometimes overnight.

Once I was happy with the paint coverage, I carefully peeled the painters tape off to reveal the gold lines underneath.

I finished it off with a coat of Clear Acrylic spray to seal & protect it, as well as give it a little bit of a polished look.