How to paint giant wall art: As well as crafting, I love to paint. Not having a formal art background has never stopped me from painting and creating.
My craft buddy Wendy and I have a thing about painting our dogs, admittedly she is a bit better at it than I am, but that doesn’t stop me. By showing how Wendy painted a giant posterized portrait of her dog Lottie, I’ll show you how easy it is to create your own giant wall art.
It is a bit like the painting by numbers you may have done as a child.
To create your own artwork is easier than you think, all it takes is a bit of practice and confidence. My house is full of stuff I’ve painted. Not because I necessarily think it’s brilliant, but because I’ve created it and it’s personal to me and my family.
After visiting art galleries and exhibitions I often come away feeling inspired. I tap into that inspiration by painting my dog Toby in the style of the artist’s exhibition I have just been to.
In fact, my husband’s favourite painting (chalks actually), is “the woof” instead of the scream. I painted Toby in the style of Munch after visiting the museum in Oslo, just for a bit of fun.
At Christmas I even painted a giant Christmas tree for my wall.
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A Simple Way to Paint Your Own Giant Wall Art of Your Pet
What You Need
- Giant canvas – You can either buy this from an art shop, or do what Wendy and I do which is buy our canvases in the sales or junk shops. We just then paint over the existing artwork with white emulsion paint, to create a cheap white blank canvas.
- Some form of projector, art projector, or overhead projector. You can buy overhead projectors cheap on eBay or you may be able to borrow one from a school or work.
- Paints, we tend to paint in acrylics or gouache.
Easy Way To Paint A Giant Pet Portrait
1.. First, take a picture of your pet, either with a camera or even better on your phone using one of the many photo filtering apps. There are some fantastic free apps that will turn any picture into geometric art. Polygen is one that I use.
2. Next, once you are happy with your picture print it out onto an A4 transparency. So that you can project the image onto your canvas.
3. Project the image of your pet onto the giant canvas. Then simply trace around the image with a light pencil.
4. As I mentioned in the beginning painting this giant pet portrait is a bit like painting by numbers. Using your original posterized pet portrait work out your colour chart for the wall art. Giving each colour a number and then writing the number in the right place on the canvas.
Top tip: Try and keep the number of different colours that you use to under 20. There should be this option on the posterizing app you use.
5. Next, start painting. Just start wherever you fancy and continue until finished. You may want to complete your painting over a couple of sessions.
Simply follow your paint by numbers guide. You will see your giant pet portrait come alive before your eyes.
Personally, I love Wendy’s portrait of Lottie and think it looks fabulous in her house. Everyone who visits admires her artwork especially when they realize it’s Lottie in the painting. I can’t wait to create my own paint by numbers giant wall art of Toby.
If you like this then you may like the tutorial I did on how to create a Map Art Pet Collage portrait. Also, I have a great tutorial for embroidery on a canvas.
Lottie and Toby are often around us when we craft and we have even made them some fantastic upcycled denim dog toys to keep them occupied while we paint.
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Tuesday 5th of March 2019
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Duncan,stewart
Monday 30th of April 2018
Can't,wait,to get,started,nama,stay,duncan!!!
Claire Armstrong
Monday 30th of April 2018
Thank you!
Callie
Thursday 19th of April 2018
Can you tell me specifically what app you used to make this picture? I love it and I tried the one you mentioned in the post but it doesn’t have nearly the detail that yours has. Thanks!
Claire Armstrong
Thursday 19th of April 2018
It was my friend’s son who did it in photoshop using one of their filters. There are a few other apps like Poly Gen you could try.
Helen
Tuesday 6th of June 2017
Love it so much, I have a boxer and collie, could you tell me how it was photoshopped, ie in what art style cos it's fantastic xx
Claire Armstrong
Tuesday 6th of June 2017
Thank you, Helen. My friend did the photoshopping but now you can get apps that will do the geometric filter for you such as Polygen.
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Thursday 6th of April 2017
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