Dollar Store + Qtip Art!
by
Lea Grossman
4 Materials
$30
2 Hours
Easy
So on the wall above our living room couch, I have been itching to put a masterpiece. A few years ago, we had these cheap picture frames from Ikea, with these butterfly prints in them, and in the past few months, 2 of them fell. I couldn't bring myself to replace them because they are so boring, and I have been itching to put more of a 'statement piece' in that spot.
With some time off from work, I was determined to come up with something, but I just hadn't found the inspiration. Finally, on the last day, inspiration struck. I was walking by a store that sold prints on canvases, and the one painting in the store caught my eye. It was a large canvas, with four trees on it - it looked like the artist had plopped the paint to create the trees, and added some gold for shimmer (it was gorgeous). But it cost a whopping 200$!
I decided to take a walk and come back if I was desperate. Thank goodness, the next stop was the dollar store! I walked in and saw a huge variety of acrylics... and inspiration struck!
I bought a bunch of colors, two canvases, and voila! My masterpiece!
With some time off from work, I was determined to come up with something, but I just hadn't found the inspiration. Finally, on the last day, inspiration struck. I was walking by a store that sold prints on canvases, and the one painting in the store caught my eye. It was a large canvas, with four trees on it - it looked like the artist had plopped the paint to create the trees, and added some gold for shimmer (it was gorgeous). But it cost a whopping 200$!
I decided to take a walk and come back if I was desperate. Thank goodness, the next stop was the dollar store! I walked in and saw a huge variety of acrylics... and inspiration struck!
I bought a bunch of colors, two canvases, and voila! My masterpiece!
I bought two canvases - they measure 70cm x 50 cm each. I started by putting a line at 17.5 cm to the edge of each canvas - that is where my tree trunks went.
I bought a total of 14 colors - 3 shades of reds, greens, blues, purples, brown for the trunk and a gold.
Originally, I was disappointed that the dollar store did not have any paintrbrushes for sale. But lucky for me, I did have some extra qtips lying around! I started each tree with the darkest color in that family. I just dipped the qtip in the paint and dipped on the canvas - this is where I became an artist ;)
Each tree has one layer of the darker shade, then lighter, then lightest.
The purple tree is my favorite!
It's hard to tell with the lighting in my apartment, but I used my fingers to smear the gold shimmer all over the trees and tree trunks. I just wanted to add a little personality. I am also a big fan of gold ;)
Voila! The picture doesn't even do it justice. When it's hung up in the living room, it will be quite a statement piece, and I'm pretty excited about it.
Comments
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2 of 71 comments
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Beautiful however what about some leaves to balance the tops,my favourite quote is "Reason in man is like God in the world"
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This is lovely just as it is. If you want less white space, a wash of color using the medium tree color diluted with water and brushed on vertically with each tree slightly overlapping each as you did with the tree colors would give it some snap. Telling you to add the background first is counterproductive.
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