making sculptural wall art

wall art

After being asked time and time again to explain the process of the piece I made for my dining room I decided to do a blog post about it.

I began with a trip to the hardware store for wood, white paint, a few things that I could use to build up a base and a staple gun.  I found window screening and rat meshing and a few other random things that I could staple to the wood.  Once I was home I decided I would make this piece directly on my wall as it would be extremely large and heavy to hang after the fact.  Since I have made other smaller versions in my garage that were able to be hung after the fact.

So to begin I had a frame built behind the wood and nailed in to give the piece some depth and then screwed it into my wall. Next I painted the wood with white matte wall paint as a base.  Then I stapled the materials I bought at the hardware store onto the wood and finally I begin to build up the texture on the wood.  I first used plaster of paris as my material but realized that although it was quick drying it was heavy and, especially since it was being created upright, was giving me some problems.  So I decided to try molding paste.  I bought a few different textures and ended up liking the light molding paste best.  I need A LOT of it and so I bought out every store in Miami and also got some from Palm Beach.  For the small ones I have been using 5 to 6 buckets so for this one I have have used 20.

It takes a few days to dry and cracks as it does so you have to go back and build back up on top of the cracks until it has all settled and dried!

Below is my instagram stories the weekend that I was making the piece showing the process.. all the images of me in the video were taken by my seven year old!

If you try it out let me know or show me a picture!  I would love to see how it turned out! xo