Here's how to get sleek, chic, line art inspired decor for your apartment without taking art classes or sinking your money at Urban Outfitters. From one terrible artist to another.
I made a mistake in my attempts to decorate my apartment. Picture this: it is May, my parents will be in town for graduation in a week, and the only thing my roommate and I have in our living room is a threadbare couch that the last tenant left behind. In an attempt to impress my parents with my decorating skills, I decided to purchase some minimalist, framed line art from Urban Outfitters. This decision was my first mistake.
I spent one of my last college lectures actually scrolling through the Urban website for art that I liked that hopefully would match my new space when I inevitably moved. It needed to be simple and elegant and not too expensive. I spent an exorbitant amount of money on two canvases that ended up looking a lot smaller, and to add Insult to Injury, I paid for rush shipping. I wanted it to arrive before my parents did so that my apartment looked like someone actually lived there. Ironically, Fed Ex refused to ship to my complex and thus I did not receive my package until after my parentals had left.
These are the two prints I got. The lefthand one is The Woman with Flower print by Nadja and the righthand one is the Pinky Swear print by Explicit Design, both sold on Urban Outfitters. If you think this picture is small on your screen, don't worry-- it is similarly just as tiny in my apartment.
I still really do like that line art, though. I loved how elevated and simple it looked. It would match with any color scheme of any future residence, even if I happened to move in with someone who just loved the color orange (let us all pray I never fall for someone who decorates with orange). Considering that it was all lines, I wanted to believe that I could do it myself. I had only limited belief in my skills as an artist, but I was willing to try.
Luckily, you don't have to be super great at art to make these canvases. I painted two large canvases with a stencil method that got me through sorority crafting season, and now these canvases are the centerpiece of my apartment decor. And, it is almost as easy as tracing.
Any large, reasonably sturdy canvas that you could get at Urban Outfitters is going to be upwards of $200 if you get it framed. Sometimes you have to make art yourself. I love art inspired decor, but my hand just isn't steady enough to reliably make art without crazy amounts of tracing. I can draw flowers or geometric shapes to create a cool effect... But should I try to sketch a human or an animal, the results are... embarrassing. I draw like a child who only barely passed art in third grade.
Here's where my stencil comes in.
This is what you will need for this project:
Paint in the color of your preference.
Starter paint brush kit (mine is from Michael's) (I accidentally got watercolor brushes, but they worked fine)
Canvas of your preferred size (check Michael's for deals- I got two 24x30 ones for 70% off)
Computer paper
Pencil
Ballpoint pen
If you have a version of your image on the computer, you can conceivably scale it and print it for this trick to work. I did not have a printer, so I essentially used my computer as a lightbox.
1. Scale your image to the size you'd like that will fill your computer screen. If your canvas is large, you may need to cut the images into different quadrants and repeat this step until you have traced all of the quarters.
2. You'll fill the screen with the image, put your brightness at the maximum setting, and tape a piece of computer paper to the screen. Make sure not to touch the trackpad, or you will risk shifting the image.
3. The lines of the image will show through onto the paper with the light of the screen. You will trace the bold lines of the image out with a highlighter. Since this is line art and improv is great for adding a personal touch just make sure you have the most important lines done. Since I am bad at drawing faces, I traced the profile from a sketch tutorial and freehanded the flowers.
4. Once you are satisfied with the shape you will be transferring, flip your paper over to the wrong side. Shade the back side with a pencil. It is easiest to use a standard #2 pencil, but I have made it work with a mechanical pencil.
5. Place your image onto the canvas where you would like it to be with the pencil marked side facing down. Use office or washi tape to secure the stencil in place if you are worried about it moving.
6. You will essentially be transferring the pencil marks onto the canvas to make a perfect outline. On the top side, draw over the original stencil with a ballpoint pen. You do not need to you excessive pressure; normal writing pressure will work fine. Don't tear the paper. The ballpoint of the pen will cause the pencil marks to actually appear on the canvas.
7. Remove the paper. The pencil sketch will be visible as a thin line where you pressed, which you can now paint over with your chosen color of paint.
8. Paint away!
Adding your own personal touch to this project is key. Breath life into a simple sketch by adding flourishes of your own invention. I used a basic sketch that I found online to create the figure for these, but I added the bouquet afro and the peony head out of my own idea. The great thing about this method is it let my imagination run wild for the flower painting, considering it looked very dreamy when it was sketchy, but I still had the clean lines for the body so that my human figures actually looked like people. It is also a very personal piece that no one but me will ever have, considering that it is not an exact recreation of any one work of art.
The overall project cost me less than just one of those small Urban canvases cost. Now all four of them, both the purchased prints and the piece they inspired, hang above my bed. And I have to say... It looks pretty damn good.
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