Textured Canvas Art

Awhile ago, a friend was moving and didn’t want to take a giant canvas with her. She gave it to me, knowing I would love it. I didn’t have an idea what to do with it for almost a year. Then walking into homegoods one evening and seeing a very large dark textured canvas piece, I was intrigued. It was for sale for almost $500… No way I was going to spend that on something I knew I could make. So I did. I made my own. Its an easy way to create modern, abstract art, for less than what you would pay for in just about any home decor store.

If you have a large canvas laying around, this is an easy DIY, if not there are ways to make your own canvas for fairly cheap as well. Ill link a few options below:

Materials:

Large blank canvas of any size
Drywall mud / spackling
Spackling knife
Primer
Paint of choice
Foam roller
1x 2’s for building a frame
hanging hardware
Fine grit sand paper ( optional)

Step 1: Sourcing a canvas

If you do not already have a canvas here are a few options for getting one at a pretty affordable price IMO.

Once you have a canvas or decided to make one, move it to an area with good ventilation, and isn’t too cold. If the canvas is painted and textured in a cold area it will take A LONG time to dry. I did this and regret it. It took over 2 days for the texture mud to completely dry.

This post contains affiliate links that may earn me a commission if you purchase, but doesn’t effect you:)

Step 2: Texture

This step is kinda fun, and reminds me of frosting a giant cake. You simply take a bunch of drywall mud, and your spackling knife and start putting the mud onto the canvas.

You don’t want it to be too thick, or it will crack and fall off. If you are wanting to have lots of texture, you could do thinner layers and build it up.

The fun part about this step is that there really isn’t any wrong way to do it besides going too thick. You can spread the mud in just about any direction, and leave behind just about any marks or imperfections you want. The less perfect, actually the better.

Play around with angling the knife in different directions, closer to the canvas, farther away etc. All of it will produce different results, and textures.

I did apply it too thick in one part and it took wayyyy too long to dry, then cracked and fell off. So I re applied to that area with thinner built up layers and it worked much better.

Step 3: Prime it

Drywall mud is very dusty and dry once it cures. This soaks up paint like crazy. So just like you would with a wall that is freshly coated in drywall mud, you need to prime it before adding your color. If you do not prime it, the paint will soak into the drywall mud, probably unevenly, causing some shiny and some flat spots.

Here is the primer I used, I had it on hand from other projects.

I used a roller tray, medium knap roller, and handle to apply the primer. I set the canvas on two buckets in my shop area and painted with it horizontal to the floor. I didn’t want drips or anything like that, so I thought laying it flat was probably the best option.

Wait for the primer to dry completely before painting.

Step 4: Painting

This step is where the painting really started to come to life for me. I chose a dark black color with a low sheen. I wanted something big and moody for my white walls. You can choose any color you want here, or lots of colors. You could do a whole abstract painting on top of the texture if you wanted to.

I wanted it to be simple and minimalistic. So I went with one solid color. I did two thin coats of paint, painting in each direction to make sure I got the paint into each little divot on the canvas.

I used a foam roller for this. I wrapped the foam roller in a plastic grocery sack between coats to ensure that it wouldn’t dry out. Wait for it to dry completely between coats.

AND thats it! I contemplated hanging a wooden frame around it, and still might at some point in the future. It took 3 days for all of the mud and paint layers to dry completely. It wasn’t an expensive project, but it was kind of time consuming.