Using Wall Spackling To Create Textured DIY Thrift Store Art
What's a girl to do when she finds two matching canvases at Goodwill that are completely hideous?
She buys them of course! I found these a few weeks ago and bought them for $3.99 each. So for $8 I had two pretty great little canvases. I knew I wanted to transform them, although I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted to do with them. Inspiration struck when I saw this photo in Josh Young's Instagram feed.
That art on his dresser is so cool and I knew I wanted to use that as my guiding direction. So here's how I turned those hideous Goodwill paintings into something I was excited to put on my nightstand. Here are the supplies I used!
- a mix of paint brushes (you certainly don't need this many, but having at least a few sizes is helpful)
- craft paint (I used white, brown, blue, black, and green, but you can use whatever you have on hand)
- a butter knife to spread on the spackling
First up was painting over the canvases, I just used some white craft paint for this part, I painted the fronts and all four sides of each canvas.
Once my coat of white paint was dry it was time for the spackling! Spackling is an easy way to give DIY art some dimension and texture very quickly (without building up layers and layers of expensive oil paint). I used a butter knife to spread my spackling on and this part was so fun, kind of like icing a cake.
Try not to overthink this part- you just want to make sure every part of the canvas has a layer of spackling and there are lots of strokes to create that texture.
Once the spackling was dry it was time to paint (and you better believe that this impatient girl used a hairdryer to speed up the drying process here too)! I first did a layer of brown mixed with white paint, leaving some areas darker than others.
I didn't want a brown painting, but I think having this color underneath the colors I did want makes for much more depth in the painting. Next I added shades of blue and green, I mixed my blue with black and white to get a dustier shade of blue.
And I mixed my green with a lot of white to tone it down. There's no science to this part- I just messed around with it until I was happy with it, making some sections darker and some lighter. And keep in mind- truly any colors could be used here, a pretty blush and mustard yellow would be a pretty combo too! Once this was dry (I again used my hair dryer to speed up the process), I added some swirls just like my inspiration. I suppose we can call them cursive E's?
I definitely used some thick strokes here to give the visual appearance of even more texture. Now for the final step, which is optional, but I think adds a great layer. Some splatter paint.
I dipped the end of my paintbrush into my leftover paint and went to town. This was about the time I realized I needed to do this outside because it was getting messy! But I love the look and additional texture that the splatter added! I styled this pair of paintings on my nightstand and I love them! They are the perfect modern statement.
Sources: nightstand | bedding | lamp (similar) | mirror | wall color- Farrow & Ball De Nimes
