Create Your Own Canvas Artwork

I set out wanting to create an art piece to fill a large wall in my apartment. Being on the frugal side I didn’t want to purchase art, and being on the arrogant side I figured I could make something tasteful. So I dove in purchasing paint supplies and experimenting. I decided to constrain myself to use two colors per painting, I chose white and three different shades of blue. The reason behind restricting the number of colors is that for starters I’m not remotely artistic, so I thought I’d give myself the best chance of success with the fewest variables. The second reason is because I’ve always been impressed when someone can take a few components and draw all the potential out of them, for example in cooking and music. If you’re curious about what I mean by that I touch on it at the end of this post.

What materials did I use?

If you’re an artist or remotely competent, don’t cringe too hard…I have no idea what I’m doing, but these were the supplies I used:

I bought the cheapest canvas I could find, a palette tray, a paint set, brushes, palette knives, and most importantly Gesso. Oh, I also bought these command strips for placing the paintings on the wall. These won’t leave any marks on your walls and are super convenient.

Back to the Gesso though. This is really the secret ingredient. I used it to make a foundation on my canvas that I then painted on top of. In order to make the pattern, I would fill a palette tray with a shade of blue then splotch it with Gesso. I then dipped a paper towel lifting the splotched color and dabbing it on the canvas. Excluding drying time, the Gesso foundation step took about 1 hour, and the pattern step took about 2 hours per painting. What I really loved about this technique is that the paintings show very differently from afar versus close up. There’s a lot of detail when you get close up, and texture too. The texture was hard to capture in the photo but the detail is clear in these photos.

P.S. Regarding my earlier comment about drawing all the potential out of only a few components, I was a jazz drummer for many years so I’m a bit biased, but Jeff Hamilton, in my opinion, is a master of what I’m talking about. He almost exclusively plays on a 4 piece kit (snare, high tom, floor tom, bass drum), and rarely has more than your standard cymbals (crash, ride, and hi-hat). Jeff Hamilton, in fact, played a solo rendition of A Night In Tunisia, melody and all, on a 4 piece kit.

If you’re not familiar with A Night In Tunisia, focus on the melody played by the trumpet that kicks in around 10 seconds in.

Make sure you remember the melody from the above video. Now check out Jeff’s rendition on drums. You should hear the melody clearly throughout. Pretty remarkable.