{Art Fix} Upcycled Ikat Art

Well, obviously my post last Friday didn’t happen as promised, my computer and I had a bit of a disagreement on when it should and shouldn’t work but fortunately I have an awesome IT guy who talked us down off the ledge and all is right in the world again. You have to love technology!

When I was looking for art for my daughters gallery wall in her bedroom I needed a piece that would tie all the colours together. I found this old painting at the op-shop, but it wasn’t the painting I liked it was the frame………I knew I could make my own art out of the old painting and paint the frame to fit the gallery wall. Together Rena and I painted an Ikat inspired art piece using all the different colours in her room. We each chose a colour and painted the same pattern across our canvas. This really is that simple you can do this with your kid!

Today I am going to show you how to take an old op-shop painting and make it into a stunning Ikat Inspired art piece. Below is what I started with:

Supplies:

• Old Framed Painting (any size)
• Acrylic Paints
• Paint Brush
• Spray Paint (not shown)

The first thing you need to do is dismantle your framed painting. Take the frame off and spray paint it your desired colour. Leave to dry.

Next Paint over the original painting with white acrylic paint. Leave to dry. You probably do not have to do this but I always like to start with a white base.

Creating an Ikat inspired pattern is all about keeping your brush strokes in an up and down pattern and feathering out at the end. It is easy to over think simple art like this and get caught up in the details but really it is not a hard look to achieve and even when you make a mistake you can just go over it again.

Start by adding your first colour to the canvas (I chose pink). Just choose three to four random spots and create jagged patterns.

Next add your second colour that will blend well with the first (I chose orange). Add it next to the first colour. And some spots on its own.

Choose your third colour that well blend well with the second colour (I chose yellow). Blend it in around the first and second colours.

Add your fourth colour (I mixed a light green). Place this in several places around the canvas. At this point it is about placing different colours around the canvas and filling in the white.

Add your fifth colour (mine is blue). Filling in more of the white. I wanted to create some darker edges so I painted the blue over the edges of the pink, therefore creating a purple. When mixing your colours on the canvas think about what other colours you can make if you mix your colours – yellow + blue = green, blue + red = purple, yellow + orange = lighter orange etc.

At this point as my canvas still had white patches I added more pink. Do the same with your canvas until the white is covered.

Then I added more yellow so that my canvas was completely covered.

Now it is time to add darker colours around the edges where colours meet on the canvas. I mixed a dark purple and added this around the pink, blue and orange patches. I made sure my strokes were quite jagged.

Next I added small patches of jagged pink, to really accentuate the Ikat look. I did this by pulling my brush strokes down into the colours below

Add a dark colour – I chose to use a dark green and brought it in around the light green, again making sure to keep it jagged. See how the darker colours are now adding depth to the pattern and giving it that more defined Ikat look. I also added more jagged edges with the blue.

Now bring in very light strokes of white all over the canvas – keep the strokes short and sporadically placed rather than large clumps.

Finally add black (you could also add a metallic paint here – at this point on my daughters painting we added gold paint). Like the white keep it sporadic and to short light stokes, I did not load my brush with too much paint.

Place your canvas back in the frame and you have a really cheap piece of framed art….mine cost $5!

I am really pleased with how mine turned out BUT, I didn’t really start liking it until the white and black were added, then it had the look I wanted. Sometimes you just have to go with it and keep adding layers of colour and if you really hate it you can just paint over it and start again. What I love about this type of art is that it costs so little, I started doing this with op-shop paintings when I was a newlywed as we couldn’t afford expensive canvas. Even the masters did this…..Rembrandt, Picasso & Van Gogh painted over their own work! Many great masterpieces will never see the light of day again as these master painters were the first ever Upcyclers! Pretty cool to be in the company of such great artists, don’t you think? Thanks for stopping by, have a lovely week and if you have time to spare why not Upcycle your own art?

 

 

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