Art on the cheap

I needed some art to decorate a couple of walls in my home.  I am far from a connoisseur of art.  I tend to believe that the beauty of art may be in the eye of the beholder, as people's taste in art varies so much.

I priced some framed art at a number of different stores.  I was looking for nothing fancy; just something to add a pop of color to some bland white walls.  I found a few pieces that really caught my eye, but there was a big drawback:  The price!  After going from store to store, I had an idea--why not try my hand at some abstract-type painting of my own?

To be honest, though, I have not even attempted to paint since taking an extra credit art class, which I detested, my freshman year of high school.   The cool thing about a blank canvas is that you can literally do what you want.  There is no right or wrong.  So I decided to give a try.

I figured it would be better to start with a decent sized canvas since this was my first go at it.  Fortunately, Joann's Fabrics (who knew?!) had an awesome sale going and all the canvases were half off.  I settled on two 16 x 16 canvases.  

I wandered over to the paint aisle and spent a hurried few minutes choosing a paint kit since the store was closing.

 

I settled on a kit by Reeves that contained 18 small tubes of acrylic colors. I grabbed a package of paint brushes of varied sizes and a small mixing tray. My total was approximately $23--not bad at all!

Area rug for inspiration

I'm so green at this, that I didn't even have an easel to hold the canvas. I spread an old sheet on the floor and sat down staring for a few minutes at the blank canvas.  I was afraid to start because I had no direction.  I didn't know what I wanted to do, I had absolutely no vision.  I decided to take my inspiration from a really large area rug we had recently purchased.  I decided to pull some of the colors from the rug onto my picture. I took a deep breath and started to mixing colors t0 match.

After placing a few arches on the canvas, I decided to try some circles.  The wonder of abstract art, for me, was that there literally was no way to make a mistake.  When I did a color or shape I wasn't happy with, I blended it or did something else to make it better.  I started to relax and I found that the process was actually soothing.

An hour later, I was finished.  I stepped back to assess my work.  At first I didn't like it.  I'm not sure what I wanted but I just didn't like it so much.  My husband, being the cheerleader that he is, raved about it.  He picked out the perfect spot on the wall to hang it after it dried.  The next day, I re-inspected my art and I found that the colors dried to some very pretty hues.  That night, I repeated the process.  Here are the two pieces I ended up with: (Not the best camera--but I posted about the camera issue previously)

 

Far from Picasso but I have gotten a lot of compliments from visitors to my home.  The biggest boost is that I did this by going out on a limb and trying something new.  Custom art for under $25? I think I may have found a new hobby. ;-)