DIY: Modern Art

I’m still 'trucking along" in the process of decorating our apartment. One of the things that I’ve felt like our apartment has been lacking is bits of art here and there. While sleek, white walls can look amazing in some places, I’m just not a sleek white walls kind of gal - I want color!

I’ve been oogling all of the beautiful art work in my design inspiration photos and the gorgeous paintings from THIS wonderful artist and decided that it was time to stop admiring and instead time to start painting.

I wouldn’t consider myself to be an “artist,” but anyone can mimic a design style with a little patience and determination. And, truth be told, I’ve done some painting before and have tackled many art projects. It was certainly ambitious to try and create something as beautiful as Jen’s works, and even though it’s nowhere near worth what one of her pieces sell for, this on-a-budget gal was pretty pleased with what she came up with.

The supplies that I used for this project was a plain old canvas from Michaels and a variety of acrylic paints in fun colors. I realize that this painting has no real “color theme,” but it does incorporate some of the colors that I’ve been using in our throw pillows for the couch so it definitely helps pull things together a little bit. I also used that amazing gold shimmer paint that I used on my last DIY project (that lavender board with quatrefoils) since it provided the perfect accent to the flat acrylic colors (I included a photo from an angle so you can see the slight shimmer of the gold paint!) The total cost for this project was probably around $15, especially since the paints that I bought were on sale and so were the canvases (which came in a two pack).

The piece is certainly a bit modern, but I’ve decided that the only way to “make our living room work” in our New York apartment is by combing some traditional looks with more modern pieces. I have a spot in the living room in mind for where I want to hang the piece, but unfortunately the lamp in that corner will completely hide all of it’s special details so my next step is to either find a different lamp for that spot OR find another place for the painting.

Overall I’m pleased with how it turned out, and for 15 bucks I’m even more pleased. Of course, a lot of what makes expensive paintings the most interesting is the fact that they are done on interesting sized canvases, BUT since I didn't want to stretch my own canvas, I had to go with a standard size. What do you think!?

**Sorry the photo quality isn't the best. I was using my phone for the photos!**