You don’t have to be an artist and you don’t need thousands of dollars to have expensive-looking oil paintings. You can make oversized wall art for a few cents! Perhaps you came home from the barn of pottery or the import pier and discovered this AMAZING piece of textured modern art or a nautical wall piece. You can’t get it off of your mind. It would be perfect above your dining room table, or beside your entry door. But it is sooooo expensive. It may not even be that costly, you just don’t have any wiggle room for anything other than food, shelter, and clothing. Good news! You probably already have the things it takes to make something very similar in your home. I created a giant oil look faux canvas painting by gluing together cardboard boxes and mixing paint with joint-compound. I dare you to tell the difference without looking behind it.
No Art Skills Required
The great thing about this project is if you have the ability to swish a paintbrush back and forth horizontally, you can do it! You don’t even need oil paint to make a simulated canvas oil painting. Come to think of it, you don’t even need a real canvas.
Use the Supplies you Have on Hand to Create a Faux Oil Painting
The first thing you need is large pieces of thick corrugated cardboard. The kind that comes wrapped around large appliances, such as refrigerators is ideal. Don’t have any? You don’t need to buy it!!! Ask your local hardware store if they have any laying around. Chances are pretty good they would love to get it out of their way. Better yet, let them know you will be recycling it. It couldn’t hurt to let them know what you are up to.
How to Build Your “Canvas”
Once you gather your cardboard, use a straight edge and measuring tape to mark off your desired dimensions. Keep in mind you will need strips to add depth to your final “canvas.” Once everything is marked up, use a new blade in a box cutter to cut out your pieces. The number of pieces you need depends on the finished size of your canvas. Mine is around four feet wide by 8 feet tall. I added a second brace in the center to add strength. My cut-out canvas pieces looked similar to the below diagram. These are NOT to scale by any means!
Putting the Canvas Together
Once the pieces are cut, I can begin assembling my canvas. Using hot glue, attach each cardboard strip standing up on its edge as shown below. Keep in mind your pieces will vary in size and position depending on your desired oversized wall art finished dimensions.
How to Prepare the Assembled Canvas for Painting
Now that you have your canvas all put together, you want to make sure it is smooth and ready to receive paint. Take fine grade sandpaper and VERY lightly scuff off any sharp corners. Don’t get too aggressive or you will cause paper layers to come off the cardboard. Next, apply a thin coat of primer to seal the surface and sides. Now time for some fun!
How to Make Faux Oil Paint
Oil paint is a wonderful medium in that it takes a long time to dry. For professional artists, this gives them an advantage in blending and making changes before the art dries. We are not professionals or artists. We want our paint to look like oil, but to dry fast. To achieve these goals, we will be using leftover joint compound (aka drywall mud) for texture and spare acrylic paint for color.
How to Use Faux Oil Paint
In my painting, I wanted to mimic the colors of an ocean scene. This consisted of choosing differing hues of pastel blue for sky and water, orange, beige, and yellow for sand. I began with acrylic paint diluted very thin with water. My strokes were long and continuous back and forth. There really isn’t any science to this project. Just keep swiping color back and forth until your paintbrush runs dry. Then pick up a little bit of a slightly darker or a slightly lighter shade and keep going all the way across your canvas back and forth until you reach the end.
Adding Texture to the Faux Oil Painting
Once you are happy with the thinned paint layer, you can begin adding additional color, using the same sweeping strokes. At this point, you may take a bit of joint compound in a plastic tub and add a little water until it is a thick batter consistency. Add a little acrylic paint and mix it in until well incorporated. Then, once again, use sweeping strokes to apply the paint/compound mixture across the full width of the canvas.
Finishing the Faux Oil Painting
Allow the painting to dry thoroughly before adding any finishing touches. You can add the illusion of additional height to peaks by lightly sweeping a shade lighter across the top. Add depth to areas by sweeping a shade darker in the center. Most importantly, stand back and look at the painting as a whole from a distance. You will be amazed at how professional and expensive your oversized artwork appears.
More Great Ideas
Be sure to bookmark this blog and come back often for more no-cost and low-cost home improvement ideas. Visit the Pictures Page to see how you can turn an object into something else. Also, be my guest at the Sawdust and Cornbread YouTube Channel for weekly how-to videos. Until next time let’s paint with all the colors of the wind.
Lora Lea
