I hope you guys had a fantastic weekend! Welcome to another Paint It Monday.
A couple weeks ago, I did the decorations for the Museum of East Texas’ annual Dinner and Dancing event, that is a beautiful party outside in the courtyard of the museum. We did a really cool paint project as a fundraiser for the event and I wanted to share it with you because it was such an easy and fun project.
Before I jump into the project, here are just a couple pictures that I took of some of the arrangements that we did for the garden-party-ish decorations to give you a better feel of the party.
These arrangements I did on the buffet table. I spray painted several birdcages in chartreuse green and worked in hot pink flowers and plants:
For this arrangement below, I just attached floral picks to the base of each gladiola and stuck it into this beautiful fern. It was such an easy idea that I have never done before and it instantly turned a plant into a pretty arrangement. I will be doing this again:
I also swirled about 12 tall cylinder vases with enamel paint to make these modern art vases that I thought would be perfect since this was as an art museum party:
I wish I would have taken more pictures of the vases with flowers at the event but here is a picture I took as I swirled the paint at home:
So the tutorial I wanted to share today is for this beautiful small paintings gallery wall:
The Museum Trustees and supporters of the Museum each painted a small 6 x 6 canvas and we pulled the piece together into a large gallery wall and auctioned the this complete art installation as one auction item. We had a painting party at the Museum for everyone to come and paint their canvas. Several people had never painted before and they walked away loving the experience of painting a canvas and feeling inspired! How awesome is that?!
This gallery wall is so incredible in person and it would look amazing in any room. It could also be configured to be a square or two rows down a long hallway. There are so many possibilities! I’m actually going to do the installation of this piece in the person’s home who was the highest bidder (it did VERY well) and I will update you guys with a picture after it’s installed.
You can do this same project for your own home or it’s a wonderful fundraising idea if you have an upcoming auction/charity event that you are working on. You can have a paint party and have friends paint canvases or you could paint them yourself or with have your family paint several.
The 6 x6 canvases I ordered from Dick Blick Art online here at $2.24 for a two-pack! Such a great price and it makes each canvas $1.12 each.
For the paint, I prefer to use the really good acrylic paints because the quality of paint makes all of the difference (trust me!). The super cheap brands of acrylic are translucent and chalky and just look bad. We used Basics Acrylics, Master Touch and Liquitex from Hobby Lobby (Michael’s carries this paint as well) All of these brands in my opinion are the best paints to use for this project.
Brushes are important too and again, the cheaper the brush, the harder it is to work with it. I recommend picking up a couple different sizes of good brushes for this project.
There are so many possibilities with this idea and it would be a fun kids class project as well. I ordered enough canvases to do a gallery wall project here at home that I’ll be sharing in a few weeks. I hope it turns out as fun as it looks in my head! Ha!
Thanks for stopping by!
Cheers!
Cyndy
Debbie says
Love the idea of the small paintings gallery! Maybe something I could have my sons friend do for a wedding gift!
Debbie
Paula Cote says
I am so glad that I stumbled on to your site. As a mom of 5 kiddos under the age of 9, I find it inspiring, relaxing. So many sites are jam-packed with information and ads, big projects that are not very practical and consume days or weeks, or simply things that are not realistic for a busy mom like me. My 5 bebes and I are going to be doing the gallery wall as a surprise gift for daddy who is returning from a yr. long deployment in Afghanistan in about a month.
Thanks so much!
Pam @ Simple Details says
Oh my gosh, Cyndy!! This is SO fun and reasonable, I want one!! The possibilities have my head spinning!
D.Gibbs says
Those fern arrangements are genius! Enjoyed this post.
D.Gibbs says
Those fern arrangements are genius! Enjoyed this post. (The swirl painted vases, too!)