Ballard Designs Knockoff Paintings

My two favorite catalogs to get in the mail are Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs.  I love to study the spaces they create and I turn down the corners of the pages that are my favorite in order to bookmark them.  The page below was the lucky recipient of  a ‘corner turndown’ in a recent Ballard Designs catalog. 🙂

via Ballard Designs

This room was masterfully composed by designer William Peace.  I love the relaxed feel of the space and the mix of grays, blues, beiges, and golds.  And of course the amazing set of abstract paintings!  Aren’t they gorgeous!?  Caroline Gold painted these oversized paintings for Ballard Designs.  Together they cost $900 and measure 46 x 36 inches per painting!

I was inspired to use these paintings in my recent powder bathroom makeover but did not have the money or space to purchase Ballard’s version (if you do, by all means please buy them I’m all about supporting artists)!

If you neither have the money or space here is how I created my knockoff version.

 Supplies

 My version only cost me $5 per painting but I had all of the paint already left over from paint samples for my powder bathroom as well as many of the other supplies from other projects.  If you had to buy all the supplies the project would come to more like $14 a painting.

(2) 16 x 20 canvas- $8 for a 2-pack at Hobby Lobby

2 Pieces of Gold Tissue Paper- $1 at Dollar Tree

Modge Podge- Can’t remember the cost I’ve had mine for awhile

Medium Size Paint Brush or 2- $1 at Dollar Tree

Paints- Sherwin Williams Riverway, Behr Rocky Mountain, Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, Sherwin Williams Kilim Beige (you can buy all of these colors at Home Depot in the sample size for $3 a sample)- $12

White and Brown acrylic paints-$2

 

‘Step By Step (oooh baby)’

1. Take out your 2 canvases and Modge Podge two pieces of gold tissue paper onto the canvases as shown below.

Tip- I brushed the modge podge onto the canvas and then laid the tissue paper on top of it and smoothed it out.  Don’t worry if you can’t get it totally smooth, the wrinkles end up looking cool when the paint is on top.  It gives the painting more dimension and makes it look professional.

3.  Start with the canvas on the left that has no gold tissue paper in the midsection (in otherwords the one wearing the gold bikini):-)  I had the original next to me on my ipad the whole time to refer to often.  Start at the bottom by brushing on some white paint.  I used white left over wall paint but I’m sure a white $1 acrylic paint would work too.  Use short, choppy brush strokes to mimic the original painting.

4.  Continue painting the rest of the canvas in the colors shown below.  Wipe your brush on a  paper towel before changing colors.  After you get your first coat of paint on and it dries go back and tweak the painting where needed.  Refer to the original and don’t hesitate to layer colors by brushing on wisps of colors where you need to (for example the white in the very middle of the painting has wisps/light brush strokes of Behr Rocky Mountain on top of it).

5.  When the painting is done use the back of a small paint brush to paint the brown line across the painting right above the palladian blue color.

6.  Put this painting aside to dry and get the other canvas that should look like this.

7.  Use the same methods as above for painting the colors shown below (don’t forget the brown line).

8.  If you notice below the paintings have an outer edge that is beige in color.

via Ballard Designs

I chose to use some faux grasscloth wallpaper I had on hand from a different project to put up on the wall behind where the paintings would hang to ‘frame it’.

Assuming you don’t have wallpaper lying around in the perfect beige color you need (yeah I know lucky break):-)  you could tape off a rectangle on your wall and paint it SW Kilim Beige or you could paint SW Kilim Beige directly onto your canvas’s edge.  If you took the latter route you would need to do this step first being sure to tape for a clean edge between the beige and white space.

So what do you think?  Going to give it a try?  Let me know if you have any questions!!!