DIY Herringbone Canvas Art

 This DIY Herringbone Canvas Art is the perfect DIY project to 

create a big statement on a budget.

This piece and its tutorial were originally posted on my other blog {hence the watermark}. I've decided to just be a one blog kind gal from here on out, so I'm starting the process of publishing some of the posts from over there to here. I'd like to have some of my favorites around forever as I close that blog out. I apologize if this is a repeat performance for ya. Let's move the whole "I want to start a second blog" thing over to the "what was I thinking?!?" column. Bit off way more than I could ever chew>>>

I love creating my own artwork. It can be so fun to play around with color and texture...and spend next to nothing. Check out below how I created this DIY Herringbone Canvas Art with an old canvas and paints that I had on hand.

I took a slight risk with this one. But, I really liked the payoff. This French canvas print had hung in our home for well over seven years. It was cute, but not really our style anymore. We purchased it at Target when we first bought our home. I'll be honest, I'm really not one to spend money on art...I prefer to do it myself and put my own stamp on things. So the $100 price tag still came back to haunt me when I took a paintbrush to it a couple of weeks ago. As a side note, I absolutely LOVE using old canvases (canvii?) for new artwork. I pick them up for next to nothing all the time at thrift stores. Since this one was going smack dab back in the same spot it was removed from, I just used the one I had. You know, the one I friggin' paid 100 bucks for. No pressure. I used my go-to: Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Country Grey. One coat...yeehaw!

What I hadn't thought about ahead of time was the fact that the previous canvas had texture on it. I ended up just lightly sanding it off with a sanding block. A bit of it remained...which is what led to me giving it a weathered finish in the end. Thankfully, it all worked out.

I'm soooo not a math person. So, this was roughly done. Half measured, half eye-balled. I ran a line of tape down the middle and then halved each half with more tape.

Then the fun part...which turned out to be not nearly as difficult as I imagined it would be (y'all, I nearly talked myself into another hundred dollar Target piece just to get out of the math here). But, I used my level as a spacer and then just started laying tape down. I didn't start with a particular angle, I just went with that first row. After placing the first tape down, each one was measured with the spacer (level) going all the way down to the bottom. To repeat the angle (the one I didn't measure), I then measured from the top of the canvas to where the first piece of tape was. Then I measured to the opposite end of that piece of tape to use the difference for the angle. That's probably about as clear as mud. Let me try again: the "downsides" of the tape are all even from the top of the canvas, the "upsides" (which don't touch between the two rows I'm working on above) are the same measurement from the top of the canvas, too.

 

Ta-Da!

I sealed up the tape with another coat of chalk paint (notice I ran out of Annie Sloan...gasp!).

This brand worked just as great and certainly did the trick!

After the sealing paint dried, it was time to start in with the color. I wanted gold to be the predominant color on the canvas. So, I used my Modern Masters Gold Paint and painted every other section in gold. I just love the fun shimmer!

Then I filled in the remaining areas with some paints that I had on hand...ones that coordinated with the colors of my living room, since that's where this was going back to.

While the paint was still tacky, I pulled off the tape. Here's where that texture the original art had came into play. It came off with some of the tape! That's when I knew I'd be weathering the piece. Plus, the super modern look with all the pretty clean lines doesn't completely fit in with my shabby, vintage style. I needed a bit of dirty-ness on this thing for it to fit in with the rest of my decor.

I took my sanding block and roughed up the entire piece.

To finish it off, and make it even more vintage-y, I wiped on a coat of stain and then wiped it into the piece. I removed the excess with a clean cloth. The diamond pattern that you see in the background is the canvas's frame. When I sanded it, it came through (not literally...but you can see what it did here). I was going to fix it, but my husband really liked that feature, so it stayed!

So what do you think?

Do you enjoy making your own artwork?

Neglect your chores like me and don't miss a thing:

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