Moving into a two bedroom flat after the farm which had five bedrooms, an enormous living area, kitchen and self-contained studio is somewhat of an adjustment. Two weeks in we’re coping remarkably well and yesterday was the day for a bit of artwork to personalise our space.

All of our artwork is currently in storage back in New Zealand (I’ll write more on all the moving later but for now I’m taking a mental and emotional break from the big move.

Watching Instagram I was a bit inspired to give textured painting a go and am rather pleased with the results. I’m not a painter and can’t really draw so these sorts of non-technical pieces are right up my alley. If you fancy giving it a go, here’s what I used and a few tips. All up each canvas (discounting the reusable items) cost about $12 so I’m rather happy with that.

As a brief rundown of the process:

• Tape up your canvas (if you so choose
• Apply the textured paint with pallet knife – reasonably thick
• Get your adhesive scraper/pallet knife and start to play
• The great thing about this medium, which suits me well, is that if you don’t like what you’ve created, you can erase it with the pallet knife going over your artwork and start again!
• Once you’re satisfied with the result, remove your tape and move to a safe space to dry
• Once dried (for me the next day) re-tape and paint.
• I used a flat brush in the direction of the patterns
• Dry, remove tape and hang!

Equipment – most of which I can reuse:

Spotlight (we went there for curtains and came out with quite a bit more…)

• Semco 25 paint brush set: $8
• Jo Sonja’s Textured Paint: $11.90 (enough for my two canvases, my son’s and enough for a fourth)
• Francheville Palette Knives Brown (set of 5): $15
• Jo  Sonja’s Acrylic Paint (Bronze): $6.30
• Semco 14×14 Canvas pack of 3: $18

• Bunnings:
• 2 x tile adhesive spreader: $1.68 each
• Roll of painter’s masking tape: $10

Tips:

• To get the circle I spun our lazy-Susan – I don’t think I could have done it well without that.
• I used two lots of tape – to stop the cracking I read can happen, I removed the tape on the textured paint immediately after I was finished and then re-applied it for the painting step.
• The textured paint dried overnight and, whilst I couldn’t find a cure time, I’d say a good 12hours is safe.
• I should have pressed down harder on the masking tape for the painting step as it bled under the tape in some areas.

Overall though – job done and rather happy with the effort. I’ll definitely give it a go on a larger canvas at some point.