I loved the framed trees on the mantle in the living room, but for the sake of simplifying in preparation to sell, I thought one large canvas would be better to really show off the scale of the fireplace. Large art can be expensive so I decided to tackle this one myself.
I’d thought I’d share a few tips to note before starting your own painting:
• They sell large, blank canvases at most craft stores and the best part is craft stores generally have 50% off coupons. I purchased a 24×36 canvas from Michaels for under $25. I already had acrylic paint on hand and think this is a great starter set.
• One tip I learned while studying art in college is that all you really need are the primary colors, plus black and white and mixing your own secondary (and tertiary) colors from those will actually help your whole painting and color palette feel unified. But! If that’s intimidating to you, don’t feel one iota of guilt about squeezing a little green or ochre or indigo on there if you want!
• Once you decide what to paint, I recommend doing an “underpainting” first. Basically, paint your entire canvas in a neutral tone–I like to go a little darker because it helps me see the depth of color better! But I’ve seen some artists do a red underpainting and have peeks of it come through in the final. It’s really up to you. But painting straight on a white canvas can often leave you with a dull finished product if your final background is anything but white.
• Framing your art when you’re done will REALLY go a long way in making it looked polished. Here’s an easy DIY framed canvas tutorial. But for the new art, I actually just painted a boarder around the edge and it looks frame from a distance!
We took a short video of the process:
And here’s the final piece!
And how it looks above the fireplace in the living room:
Art is subjective so I tried to do something that I thought was universally cheerful and welcoming for our upcoming showings! It makes me sooo happy!!! What do you think??
Hope you all have a Happy April Fool’s day! ;)
You totally got me, and I’ve assumed that was your art until today. I honestly thought, wow, Julia really does need to move for her health!
SO great! :)))
Dying!
I feel quite proud of myself that when I saw the first picture and before I even opened the post I knew this was fake!!
It’s soooooo you!!! LOL