Introduction: Rainbow Metallic Wall Art

By
About: Makeademic

I've been wanting to add some color to my apartment walls and what better way than to go all out with every color of the rainbow? I was shopping at Michael's Arts and Crafts with a 40% off coupon in my pocket and came across a canvas sale with 5 various canvas sizes in one pack for ~$13! Score! But my coupon was for regular priced items so I went to the paint aisle and lo and behold found a 12-piece metallic acrylic paint set! Double score! And that led me to make this wall art. Hope you enjoy!

Step 1: Gather Supplies

For this easy DIY wall art, you'll need:

Multiple canvases
Newsprint/paper to protect the floor
Paints of your choice (I used Artist's Loft 12-piece Metallic Acrylic Paint Set and DecoArt Elegant Finish Glorious Gold DA071 Metallic Paint)
Paintbrush
Cup of water
Paper cup for diluting gold paint

Step 2: Arrange and Plan Background

In order to keep from muddying your colors, you will want to plan in advance where your analogous colors will go.

1. Lay out your old newspaper or newsprint on your floor to protect your flooring.
2. Lay out multiple canvases in an arrangement that pleases you.
3. Put the paint tubes in the general area you would like them to go.
4. Squeeze paint almost in strokes onto the canvas.
5. Start with your lightest color (in my case yellow) and with a wet paintbrush, fluidly stroke back and forth, spreading the paint along the area.

Step 3: Paint Background

This step is really up to you but find below how I did it.

1. Continue painting in areas. I started off yellow, then went to yellow-green, then green, then green-blue, then blue.
2. Periodically rinse off paintbrush and get new water.
3. Work from the corners to the inside. I next went violet, indigo, blue, violet, red-violet and rinsed.
4. Next I did red and red-violet, and then red and orange.
5. Finally I made it back to yellow and yellow orange.

Step 4: Splatter Paint Foreground

I used two techniques for the foreground, dripping paint and splattering it.

1. I first had to water down my gold metallic paint because it was too viscous, so I mixed with water in a paper cup.
2. I then tilted the paper cup of the gold paint solution over the canvas in blotches.
3. Next, I tilted the individual canvases at different angles and watched the paint drip to create different patterns.
4. Lastly, I scooped globs of the paint mixture on my paintbrush and flicked my wrist to leave splatters.

Step 5: Hang Up Wall Art and Enjoy!

The last step is to hang it up and appreciate your effortlessly awesome wall art.

1. I decided when hanging my finished piece to arrange it upside down.
2. I also left some margins between the canvases for added visual interest.
3. A hammer and seven nails was all I needed!

Hope you found this tutorial spect(rum)tacular!

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