Recycled paint palette wall art

Recycled colour block Paint Palette wall art

Hey!

I'm going to let you in on a bit of a secret (well, not so much) but, anyway, here it is. I am a horder! There I said it. I don't like to throw things away if it has the slightest amount of sentimental value to me or I feel I could repurpose it in some way, even though most of the time I never get around to it and it just ends up shoved in a long forgotten draw for all of time, creating what looks to be a scene out of Wall-e. So, enough of the backstory. Recently, my school had been having a clear out in art supplies to make room for all new stuff. When I saw these paint palettes lying in the bin, I couldn't help but feel the urge to rescue them and take them home to re-use them, though at the time I had no clue as to what to use them for.

Then I decided. I could make some cool, artistic wall hart that transforms any room into a cool artist's studio.

What you will need:

• Paint palettes- Old or new, it doesn't matter, as long as you don't mind covering them in paint
• Spray paint- All purpose or any kind that sticks to plastic
• Acrylic paint- In an array of colours, depending on your colour scheme
• String
• Beads
• Glass screen wash

Method

1.Take your palettes,which might be covered in old, dried up paint like mine were and brainstorm ideas of what you want to do with them. I decided to use both of mine in the same piece.

2.The next step is to remove some of the excess clumps of paint to make it easier for the spray paint to stick to the surface and give the piece a smoother, finished look.

I used sandpaper to remove some of the larger pieces of paint and then left some glass screen wash on the palette for around 10 minutes to help with some of the more stubborn stains.

3. By now, your palette should be fairly clean and without all of the uneven patches of paint that will ruin your finish. This means that you can now whip out the spray paint. I used this white satin finish spray paint by Rust-oleum that you can find here.

Word of warning: If possible, work in a well ventilated area, or preferably, outside to disperse the fumes. Also, lay down a surface such as newspaper underneath your palette to avoid spraying all of your furniture white (unless that's what you want, of course!).

Spray an even coat over the whole of the palette's surface and leave to dry over night. Apply several coats in this fashion to give your piece an even surface that covers all of the minor flaws such as any paint that you couldn't remove in Step 2.

4. Now that you have a clean surface to work on, you can use your acrylic paints on it. I chose to create a rainbow effect to add a pop of colour to the plain white background.

Squeeze a tiny bit of the paint in to palette sections and slowly spread the paint around and up to the edges of the bowl. At first, I wanted a kind of scrappy look as if the palette was still being used, an organised mess, if you will. However, after the paint dried, I didn't like that you could see the white underneath the paint, so I added a second coat of paint to each section to smooth out the surface and give it more of a colour block effect.

Leave the palette to dry for now and move on to the next one.

5. For my other palette, I really liked the wooden effect and the paint that was already on the surface. So, all I decided to do was give it a simple tribal look to contrast with the clean, white surface of the previous palette.

Tie a knot of twine or other natural material around the thumb hole and string a bead on to it. If you want to achieve the kind of African look, then be sure to use natural beads such as wood and I even used a bone effect one. After you've done that, keep wrapping the string until it has all been used up and you have a layered and textured wrapped palette handle.

Thats it really! Now all you have to do is decide how you want to display them. You could stand them up on a mantel piece to create a background to your collection of picture frames, or you could use picture hooks to hang them individually.

I chose to attach string between them, so that they hang vertically.
I even attached an old paint brush to the top, to really nail the artistic look.

Note: For display purposes, I only used sellotape to attach the string to the palettes which is not very durable (trust me, they kept falling off every two minutes) so of a longer period of time, you might need to glue them together or drill holes through the palettes to tie the strings through.

And voila! There you have the finished product. I hung mine on the back of my bathroom door to make use of the blank space.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and comment any suggestions for future posts!

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Hope to see you again soon!
Harry x