Large Scale Art! We all love it, we all want it, it’s AMAZING… But we don’t want to pay for it!! Want to know what is even more amazing… Large Scale Textured Art! But you know what?!?! It’s also very expensive, and unless you have a ton of extra money to spend on an amazing piece… I know you can make it yourself! Because I did… So you can too! Here is how I made our own DIY Large Canvas Textured Art Piece, for a billion times cheaper than what it would cost to buy!
So I’m sure you are thinking “WOW… Jenna… That art is super duper!! But how did you (someone who has never created wall art before) come up with such an amazing piece of art, that looks like it was made by a professional artist!”
I know!!… Well let me show you the ways…
I was inspired by some art that the Beautiful Jillian Harris had on her mantel a while back, so I looked up the artist… the artist name is Tiffany Collins! Shes amazing!! You should check out her art, and if you are loaded you should buy her art… but since you are reading this post I’ll assume you are not loaded, so I’ll show you how to make something that resembles something amazing!
Tiffany Collins has an Instagram account, which I stalked for inspiration, and I found this image, which is beautiful and nothing like how mine actually turned out, but this was my beautiful cement looking inspiration!
And the photo below is what I actually created with my own 2 hands!!
SUPPLIES NEEDED TO MAKE A LARGE CANVAS TEXTURED ART PIECE:
- Large Canvas (mine was 30 inch X 40 inch), or a large piece of Plywood
- Drywall Compound (which is what I had at home) or I hear the best inexpensive material to use is Ceramic Tile Adhesive
- Acrylic Paint for under the Drywall Compound
- Watercolor Paint for on top of the Drywall Compound
- Large/Wide Paint brush
- Small Paint Brush to create the splatters
- Putty Knives/Palette Knives/Trowels in different sizes (Putty Knives were my fave to use)
- Paper Towels to blend & rub out mistakes!
STEPS TO MAKE A LARGE CANVAS TEXTURED ART PIECE:
Step 1: Decide what color you would like popping through the texture on your art. Then Spread some of the color acrylic paint onto your canvas. This is just very roughly done… You can cover the whole canvas in color, just add some like I did, or not add any color at all. Like this… Let your paint completely dry before moving onto the next step!
Step 2: Mix up your joint compound well, and using a large trowel smooth it all over your canvas. Like this…
Step 3: This is the fun part!! Experiment with your different putty knives and trowels to create texture on your canvas. Here is a video that I found where I learned some of the different ways to create texture on a canvas.
I found my favorite way to create texture was to take a 2 inch putty knife, and scrape down to the canvas to expose the paint underneath, then with the same putty knife smooth it over the top to create these peaks and valleys. Like this…
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Your piece will now look something like this… Getting pretty cool looking…
Step 4: This is how I was going to leave the texture, but something about it I wasn’t %100 happy with. I think it was just too much texture for me… So I took a Pointing Trowel (you could use any trowel with a large flat edge) and lightly smoothed out the whole very top layer of the compound. Like this…
I absolutely love how the textured canvas turned out! It reminds me of a piece of old wall. lol… This just goes to show you, if you don’t like it just keep working at it until you LOVE IT! You got this!!
Now to let it dry over night, and then paint it!
Step 5: It’s at least the next day… or a week later… and it’s time to add some paint to your creation. I wanted a very light grey color, so I started by adding just a small blob of black watercolor paint into a bowl of water. Then I covered the whole thing in this light grey color. I just kept adding a bit more black paint to the water to darken some areas of the canvas.
I put some watercolor paint on my finger and added a couple lines of black on the canvas, then I blended it out with the big paint brush, and some paper towel, until the line was pretty much gone. LOL… I feel like I added a lot of darker areas then rubbed them off, because I didn’t like it. But eventually… just don’t give up… you will end up with something you like a little less than your inspiration photo!
Step 6: Add some super duper splatters to your artwork! So this part was a lot of trial and error. To make splatters you just put the water color paint on a small brissely paintbrush, and then flick it.
At first I did a little too many spatters, so I wiped them off (watercolors are very forgiving). Then I redid them about 15 more times, wiping off a few here and there, until it was something I could live with…
I wanted to add a bit of brownish yellowish splatters, so I mixed up this concoction, and did a we bit of spatters. They are very faint, but just perfect in my mind!
And last I attempted the bigger drips, and I think I redid them about 100 times, because they kept turning out just so big… If anyone knows how to make smaller drips… please let me know?!!…
Anyhoo, Finally I just gave into the large drips, and took a step back… And I didn’t like what I saw… sad face… The whole piece was still so dark… But I remembered the drywall was darker in the first step until it dried, so I let the whole art piece completely dry before deciding my next move…
And guess what… It dried so much lighter, and I loooooooove it!!! Just look at that textured dirty cement looking art piece that I created, it’s kinda amazing, and I know you can do it too!!!
We just hung it up on a bare wall and I fell in love… Until I look at my inspiration photo… Hint: Don’t look at the inspiration photo, instead just love what you created!
I hope you now feel inspired to create some large textured art for your own home. It is so doable… and you will be able to say that you made that masterpiece! Now let’s cover all the walls in homemade art!!
Until next time, enjoy playing with texture and paint, and creating beautiful things everyday!
XO JCL (not an artist)
I love how you provided steps and showed us the process via pictures. It looks so great and I feel like its truly something that I can do myself.
This is super fun and looks very expensive. Maybe one day I’ll work up the nerve to try. Definitely pinning for future reference!
You got this! ❤️
WHAT this is seriously so cool!! I’m decorating a new apartment currently and this will be perfect for the space!
Awesome! Thanks Hallie! Have fun creating your own art and decorating the new apartment. So fun! That’s my favorite part of moving!! Hugs!
It is really very intriguing to know and discover this way of making art, which pushes me to be creative.
I’m so glad to hear this Cristina. Let me know if you have any questions and I’ll guide you to create your own masterpiece too!