Cheap Wall Art

One of the things I have time to concentrate on is finding or making stuff to fill all of the walls. We have a lot of blank space here! One of my favorite cheap and easy projects was this:


You can tell by the complete and total lack of artistic ability that I painted these myself. I picked up four canvases at Jo-Ann's. They were two to a pack for $7 or so, and with two 50% coupons are cheap, cheap, cheap. While at Jo-Ann's, grab your paint. Since my favorite colors are red, brown and mossy green, that is what I used. Each paint was craft paint and under $1 a bottle. One bottle of brown covered all 4 canvases, and I still have almost full bottles of red and green left.

Because I never throw anything away, I can tell you what colors I used.
Chocolate Bar #20578 by Plaid
Tuscan Red by Delta Ceramcoat
Italian Sage #467 by Folk Art
The white was just a random off white latex paint that I had kicking around the garage.

Paint each canvas in the base color. Once dry, dry brush the top coat on. Go crazy. Be random. Remember... calculated randomness is the new black.

What's that you say? You don't know how to dry brush? Easy peasy lemon squeezy! Dip it into the paint and then brush some of the extra paint off onto a piece of paper towel (or paper bag, newspaper, etc.) Be sure to leave some paint on the brush. Now go crazy and paint the canvas. For a look like what I have, be sure to keep your brush strokes going one way. You can certainly go any way with the brush, but the look will be different.

I had originally painted these to line a long wall, but the last time we moved I needed something for over the TV armoire/cabinet thingy. It turned out that the four canvases together was the perfect size, so I screwed them together with brackets.



Just do me a favor. Paint the edges of the canvas. I didn't and I have a friend that it drives crazy. Each time she comes to the house she says "You need to get you some paint and paint the edges of that picture!" (She is from Mississippi and you can't appreciate the comment without the accent. I promise you it sounds as just as southern as you think it does.) I am pretty sure that one of these days she will take the thing down and paint it herself. At least that is what I am counting on.


So, don't forget to paint yours or every time Debbi comes over she will remind you.