Simple & Chic DIY Art & Gallery Wall

Wall art. It’s what ties a room together. What brings a color pallet to life. What adds depth to otherwise flat, boring walls. And what keeps you up and online shopping all night because finding the right wall art, isn’t always easy.

For our living room, I’ve been looking for just the right art for about 8 months now. It’s exhausting. Everything I find is too small, too expensive or is a mirror. Why is a mirror a problem, you ask? I’m having a mirror moment and need to slow it down before my house is completely reflective. Seriously.

The wall above the mirrored console (See? Mirror problem.) has been boring and bare for way too long and I finally decided to take matters into my own hands by creating a gallery wall of DIY artwork.

Now yes I’m crafty, and yes I hold a Bachelors of Fine Art, but it’s sure not in painting. I’m certainly no Cezanne or Monet. Maybe I’m a little crazy, like Van Gogh? My husband thought this idea was crazy, but good art comes from emotion. So I decided to embrace my crazy and go for it, and to Ikea and A.C. Moore I went.

I measured out the space and figured out I could fit a rectangle of 9 IKEA Virserum frames within the space. At $9.99 each, this set me back about $90. A little pricey, but these frames come with nice mats and I was able to get Swedish meatballs, mmm…

For the art I picked up a book of 9 x 12 thick, textured watercolor paper for $5.99 and a bottle of cheap acrylic paint in metallic gold that was on sale $.50. At home I had a half a gallon of Benjamin Moore Van Deusen Blue (a perfectly balanced navy), some brushes and delicate painters tape. So I was all in on the art at AC Moore for around $6.50.

To painting I went! I sloppily painted the watercolor paper a solid Van Deusen Blue, covering 99% of the paper area that would be visible once in the frame. I wasn’t concerned about the paint getting completely into the “tooth” of the paper because I wanted it to look painted and not printed.

I waited for the paper to dry, about 2 hours, then using the painter’s tape, I taped off a single stripe on each paper. There was no rhyme or reason to which way the stripes were going, I varied each one but did try to keep a relatively similar thickness. I made sure to really press the tape down to the paper to avoid paint bleeding through. Then I painted the stripe gold, removing the tape immediately after applying the paint –  not allowing it to dry on the tape.

The next day, when they were completely dry,  I framed and hung them.

Ta-da! Once framed and on the wall, I felt that my art school education was finally validated. Have I found my calling as a slightly skewed De Stijl artist? Nah, but it looked great and my husband no longer thought it was such a crazy idea.

It doesn’t look like a perfectly aligned grid, but in person it does! For some reason, my camera kept distorting it a bit. That’s right, I’m blaming the camera…

My vision for this room is “polished eclectic”, bringing together gold, chrome, gray and pops of navy.  This room is still very much a work in progress, but I’m really happy with how the art helps tie it together.

Finally, art on the wall – and for less than $100! Now onto the rest of this room…

This DIY partied over at these link-ups, check ’em out: