DIY Intaglio Art
I see intaglio art when I'm out thrifting and antiquing all of the time. It's always super pricey (like over $100 per piece) so I skip it, but I started looking online to see if I could find something I liked that was more reasonable. Cut to me falling in love with this piece from Ballard Designs.
But it was well over $300 for the smallest size. So I started thinking this might be a fun DIY! I ended up making my own for less than $30 and it was so ridiculously easy that I'm only wishing I had purchased more frames to make more!
So let's get into it!
Supplies:
- 8 x 10 shadowbox frame
- 5 x 7 (8 x 10 frame size) pre-cut mat
- 4 x 6 (5 x 7 frame size) pre-cut mat
- 1 package of white model magic clay (pictured here is also sculpey oven bake clay, but I didn't end up using that)
- a few pendants or cool shapes to press into the clay, I had these old costume jewelry pendants lying around
The first thing I did was insert my pre-cut mats into my shadowbox frame, I just used some white masking tape to attach the 4x6 mat to the 5x7 mat.
Next I took about a 2" piece of model magic clay and rolled it into a ball.
Once I had my ball it was time to flatten it. I just used this little stone box lid I had lying around and pressed it on top of the ball.
This left me with a nice flat circle to work with.
Now it was time to take my pendant and press it in to the top of the clay. I used this old costume jewelry pendant I had from college, but you could really use anything for this part!
Once I pulled it off I was left with this cool looking imprint.
I decided to trim around the edges to clean it up a bit.
And I was left with this really cool piece! I made one more and then let them dry overnight. In the morning all that was left to do was hot glue them onto the backing of the shadowbox, pop that back in the frame and voila!
Super fun, easy, and cheap intaglio art! I really only want to make more now. I would love to find some pretty brass frames to do this with and make a grid, kind of like this.
Let me know what you think and if you end up trying this out please tag me on Instagram or Facebook, you know I want to see it!
Need more fun cheap art ideas?
