DIY Painted Wall Art

I have slowly been changing the colors in our living room.  It was basically brown and beige, pretty dark and   has been the same since the time we moved in almost 5 years ago.  I am working to make it brighter and cheerier than the dull browns and khakis it had going on.  I have been incorporating whites, blues and other bright colors to do that, and last week I created a piece of wall art that was really easy and helps add the brightness I am looking for!

  Originally, I had these two wooden pieces hanging on either side of a large mirror.  They were just hollow wood with a fleur-de-lis carved into them, I got them on clearance from Hobby Lobby years ago.  

  After seeing this piece of art,  I fell in love and I was inspired to just make my own art using paint and paper to replace the fleur-de-lis.

I didn't want to spend a lot so, instead of buying canvases, I just took the two existing pieces and covered them in a canvas material using my staple gun, and it worked out great thankfully! 

Once I had the pieces covered in the canvas fabric, I brushed on a brown/gold acrylic paint randomly all over, the fabric absorbed the paint pretty quickly so it didn't spread as much as I was expecting it too but I think it helped give it the aged and worn look I was going for, luckily, so I went with it.

After I had the goldish color on, I topped it with a aqua color, randomly covering the whole thing going over the gold in some places. 

Next, I used a quartrefoil stencil I had left over from something else, I placed it asymmetrically on the canvas and painted over it with pink, adding the pink color all over as well.

All of the colors start blending together and fading off each other creating a neat effect.

Finally, I used the same stencil to cut out book pages. I modge podged them on and mixed a tiny bit of paint with the glue so the pages would look like are aged as well, almost like they are being exposed from underneath. 

I also very lightly used sand paper on some parts of the paper.  

I really like how this turned out, and I am not a painter, usually every time I try to paint something on a canvas it looks like my 4 year old did it, lol.  Since this is an abstract piece even mistakes can look like they were meant to be.

I just love these bright colors and they tie in nicely with the scarp paper art I made for the wall across the room from these.

I want to make a few pillows and paint a table then I think I will be finished with the living room.  So hopefully I get those things accomplished before I decide to switch things up again. Ha!

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