Did you know that art is expensive? And we have a
giant house full of
blank walls?
We need artwork for the master bedroom, master bath, guest bedroom, laundry room, hallway, breakfast room, dining room, kitchen, living room, and entryway. The office is pretty much OK with diplomas and our alumni magazine/program brochure writeups. And we have a
few other things for the rest of the house. But we barely had enough stuff for the old house, and now we have twice as much room.
Anyway, time to get creative.
The inspiration: Chiasso Natura Wall Panels ($128
each)
Pin me up. A novel way to add texture and dimension to any space. Each patterned panel is made of eco-friendly styrax wood, cut into light coin shapes and set into a dark bark background. 48"L X 10"W.
Nice-looking. But probably a bit too earthy for the rest of the decor. And certainly not OK at 128 each when we'd need to buy 2-3 to put over the bed in the master bedroom.
So, on to DIY...
Step 1: Gather supplies.- 48 x 24" canvas $25.19 on sale
- die-cut circle wood pieces of various sizes (8 bags total - I bought everything they had in the store) $21.92
- espresso paint for canvas (bought a whole gallon because we'll use this in other parts of the house; certainly, a quart would have been plenty for this project) $22.98
- 5 cans of spray paint $16.56 (I returned the dark brown; 5 colors is plenty.)
- 4" paint roller kit $4.67
- I'll also need some kind of adhesive (spray adhesive? gorilla glue? wood glue? seal-all?)
- Total cost of materials $91.42
OK, so it's not the greatest deal in the universe. But it's still $30 less than a single panel and $165 less than a pair of panels. And it covers more area and is more consistent with our decor. Plus, it's got that "I did it myself!" sense of accomplishment to go with it. :)
Step 2: Check density of circles on canvas.I really didn't have much of a clue about how well the circles I got would cover the canvas. So I figured I'd just do a dry run to see if I was OK with the density or would need to buy a lot more circles before it was all over.
I'm pretty much OK with it like this. In fact, I think it looks pretty good as-is, especially if you were going for a look more consistent with the inspiration (and hey - if you take out the paint costs, that's another $40 or so less in materials). Because I had to buy different brands of wood circles, you can see a lot of wood tone variation. Very "natura" like.
The distribution could be a little bit more dense, but we'll see how it looks once we add the color. Besides, like I said, I bought out the whole store. I can't see myself running all over town looking for little wood circles to buy unless it's really necessary.
Step 3: Add color.
No biggie. Paint the canvas with the espresso paint.
For the circles, I basically divided the test board into 5 areas and took all of the circles from that area and made them a single color. I figure there was a random enough distribution in the dry run that I'd get a good variation of circle sizes in each color. (Those of you who know me well will be shocked to learn that I used this method. You'd think I would have counted out how many circles I had of each size and then divided neatly by 5. HA! Shows what you know!)
I just laid the circles in different areas on a plastic drop cloth and spray painted them. The colors come from our summer bedding. Our winter bedding is just a subset of these colors, so hopefully it will still work. besides, you get a little more license with artwork, you know?
If I were doing this over, I would prime the circles first. Those differing wood tones that looked so interesting in the dry run made the paint color look very inconsistent from one circle to the next, even after 3 coats of spray paint. Primer probably would have helped a lot and would have been worth the extra $3.50.
Step 4: Arrange painted circles on the painted canvas.Again, I'll start with just a random distribution (take all the blue ones and scatter all over the board; repeat with red, apple, taupe, almond). Everything's still just a dry run, so I can rearrange them if I feel like one color is too concentrated in one area.
Another thing I might change on a do-over would be the color distribution. I'd focus a lot more on the taupe/almond and use the brighter colors (aqua/apple/red) as
tiny little accents. I think I maybe went too far with the color. I may be able to remedy this by buying more circles and using the brown and almond paint on them, then either use fewer of the already-brightly-colored circles or just let the new volume of brown/almond outweigh the others. Or it may be OK.
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8/16/08 update: Yep. WAY too much color!I don't hate it. In fact, it'd be great for a kid's room or playroom. Or the lobby at a clown college. But for our supposedly sophisticated master bedroom? Not so much. Even Dennis's dad came by today and asked "Is it for the baby's room?" In any case, I know it hurts my eyes.
I also measured, and 24x48 isn't quite big enough to properly utilize the wall space above the bed. So, I went out and bought 2 more canvases (12x24). Now we'll have a triptych! I also (again) bought every wooden circle cutout in the store. And I bought a giant wooden
C to (possibly) embed within the circles.
(Total additional cost for canvases, circles, and letter - $55. My "cheap" art project isn't quite so cheap anymore. But still better than buying something new, I suppose.)
ALL of the new circles will be painted taupe (~75%) or almond (~25%). I also took maybe 1/2 to 2/3 of the red, aqua, and apple circles off of the main board and repainted them taupe or almond. Then I'll redistribute all of them across the 3 canvases. If there's still too much color (certainly a possibility - those colors are BRIGHT!), I'll take more colored circles off and repaint them as well. I may need to buy more spray paint ($3.50/can - not so awful, but I'm already way over the desired budget on this bad boy.)
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8/19/08 update: Aaaaah! Now it doesn't make my eyes hurt!I modified the color scheme a bit. Even though the blue and green in the bedding is actually very light and bright, it just doesn't have that much punch. It's in smaller doses, and it's against a light background so there's less contrast than there was with the espresso canvas. I sprung for 3 more cans of spray paint ($10.50). Now "aqua" is "slate blue," "apple green" is "moss green," and "red apple" is "colonial red." Just looking at the differences in the spray can caps makes it better.
There are also far fewer colored circles, which seems to work out well. I got everything repainted and laid out (looks like we are going to use the big C), and I think it's going to work. Well, I hope so, because 1/3 of the circles are already glued down. I ended up using liquid nail, which seems to be working well but is a giant mess. I spent a lot of quality time with a toothpick trying to keep the adhesive contained to the circle and only the circle. So far, I have only 3 mistakes (that I've noticed), and hopefully those can be touched up.
--------------------Step 5: Adhere the circles to the canvas.Sadly, this will probably have to be done one circle at a time. I'm hoping to count the circles as I go. I'm guessing there are more there than I realize.
8/20/08 update: I used liquid nail for some and kitchen & bath adhesive caulk for the others (because I ran out of liquid nail). Not sure how much that cost. Close to $10, probably.
Step 6: Hang the finished canvas above the bed.Hopefully this size will be appropriate for that wall space. If not, I can buy 2 smaller canvases to put on each side of the big one and repeat.
9/2/08 update: Well, it's done. It's been done for a long time, but it finally got hung up on Saturday. I like it OK. For how much it ended up costing, I don't love it. But the colors are really good, and the wall isn't empty. So that's a huge improvement. It probably would have been a more appropriate project for the guest bedroom. But oh well.
I can't believe it ended up taking over 2 weeks and a ton more money than I thought. I guess I should anticipate those things better, because of course nothing is as fast or as cheap as one expects it to be.
