I’ve always wanted to be the type of person who can make gorgeous, DIY canvas art by just grabbing a brush and going to town. Thankfully, with this simple brush stroke art project, I can be!
Do you ever get the urge to paint something for your home but you can’t actually paint?
Ever wish you could have custom art on your walls but have no idea where to begin?
Me too. I may present myself as someone who has it all together when it comes to DIY, but I can assure you I’m not actually crafty or artistic at all. Not even a little bit.
But I sure do know how to fake it. Like with this DIY canvas brush stroke art I made for the living room. This project is beyond simple, and I promise it’ll only take you about 15 minutes to throw together. Seriously, the hardest part is picking out the colors.
This post contains affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.
DIY Brush Stroke Canvas Art
Materials Needed:
- Canvas (I used a 40% off coupon at Hobby Lobby to get mine!)
- Acrylic paints (I used 5 different colors, but you can do as few or as many as you’d like)
- Chip brushes (You can use real paint brushes if you prefer, but I found the size of these were great and they’re super cheap – I was able to use a different brush for each color)
How to Paint DIY Brush Stroke Canvas Art:
- Add a small pool of each color to a paper plate.
- Grab one of your brushes and paint a line of your first color. Just eyeball the thickness – I found that about two strokes with the brush side-to-side was the perfect width. You also want to eyeball the height – you want imperfection here. At first I got caught up in making sure the entire line was evenly coated, but then I realized that’s the exact opposite of what I want, and once I loosened up a bit it looked much better.
- Here’s where I’ll suggest you do as I say not as I do and start in the middle of your canvas. I’d recommend measuring and finding the middle, then doing your first line there and moving out. Mine turned out to be pretty centered, but it would have been a lot easier to do if I hadn’t been winging it. Just trust me on this one.
- Continue painting your lines – vary the thickness of each line so that it doesn’t look too uniform. Most of mine are about the same width, but every few lines I tried to toss in a thinner one.
- Try not to think too much about what order you’re putting the colors in. It’s tempting to do a pattern, but this is all about creating an organic, random feel and you don’t want anything to be too “perfect”. I just tried to spread my colors out a bit without doing a specific pattern. I ended up using each color twice, but that wasn’t necessarily on purpose – just how it turned out.
- When you’re done, let it dry and hang it up!
I’m loving these colors in the room, and I feel like this piece gives me a really good jumping off point for the rest of this room. They’re really similar to the colors we’re using in our master bedroom as well, and basically this piece kind of captures the feel of our entire house’s color scheme.
Plus, it adds some serious style to this little corner of the room. I used to kind of cringe at our entryway, but now I can’t stop staring at it. Seriously, as I’m writing this post I keep getting distracted because I’m just gazing at it and drooling a little bit.
I know, I have a problem. I’m okay with it.
Don’t Want to Do It Yourself?
If you love the look but aren’t interested in tackling this project yourself, here are 10 great brush stroke art options that you can order online!
Now, go forth and paint using your newfound knowledge.
Remember – art doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You just have to love it.
And sometimes, all it takes is a few quick lines on a canvas to create something that’ll make your heart sing.
Who knew?
Leave a Reply