I'm always looking for ways to add a little color and variety to my walls, and it always helps if the materials are super cheap — or even better, just laying around my house!
I've been really drawn to these rolled paper art pieces from Lee Gainer (seen on Rag & Bone's blog), so I decided to see what I could come up with on my own.
Materials:
• A shadowbox frame (I used the 9x9 Ribba from Ikea.)
• Lots of colored paper
• Scissors
• Pencil, paintbrush, nail, or any other slender object to wrap paper around
Time: 2-3 hours, depending on size of project
1. Cut paper into strips. I cut mine around 1 cm thick, but they were all slightly different and anywhere from around 2 to 8 inches long.
2. Start rolling. I made a lot of my looser rolls with a pencil and teased them out a little bit so they expanded and covered a little more ground.
3. Begin laying out a tentative design. I love Lee's abstract layouts, but I went for a more Starry Night-esque pattern.
4. Once I was done playing around, I transferred everything into my shadowbox. (You could always just start laying it out in the shadowbox to begin with, but when I began my design I didn't know what I was going to frame it with yet!)
5. Start packing in those rolls! Use a nail or toothpick to get really tightly packed circles to fill bigger circles.
6. My circles are packed in pretty tightly, so I didn't use any sort of glue or adhesive, but my shadowbox does have glass to protect everything (even though the glass has been removed for the photos to reduce glare.) You could glue everything down if you wanted to really protect your piece.
7. Pop your glass into the main frame, insert your shadowbox frame, fasten on the back, and enjoy!
MORE DIY ART ON APARTMENT THERAPY:
• 10 DIY Wall Art Ideas That Anyone Can Do
• It's Easy, Baby: DIY Abstract Art with a Twist
• Meg's DIY Wall Art: $10 & 10 Minutes
(Images: Sarah Dobbins)
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Reminds me of Starry Night. So simple but I'm sure time consuming - I really like the effect.
This kind of reminds me of Starry Starry Night.
This is really rather charming. I could see doing this as a project with an 8 year old for their bedroom or something.
Yours is great, and the link to the original - everyone should look - those large scale projects are simply breathtaking.
Does anyone know how, in the originals, by Lee Gainer, the rolls are glued down? So inspiring - this is exactly what I need to see on a Friday. Thanks.
Beautiful, I want to buy the one you made.
for a gift i made, i used a few 3x3" canvases (very cheap), painted the outsides completely black in acrylic, flipped them over and used variable-width rolled strips of paper torn from a copy of Jack Kerouac's "Book of Dreams" (gluing painting "hangers" to the black backs). I tried adhesive at first but i found it much more satisfying to create something where the rolled strips naturally expand to fill the space tightly enough to keep everything "stuck" - for most, all i needed to adhere were the corner/edge rolls....can't wait to try with colored paper now!
This really is beautiful.
There is a lot you can do with twirled paper art. The craft is called Quilling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilling
Quilling. ASDF3001 beat me to it.
How fun!
I love your rendition of Starry Night. It inspires me to try twirling paper to recreate Van Gogh's Cafe Terrace at Night.
It is also called twirling you can see some more images of it if you google 'twirling paper images'. Some are quite impressive. Yulia Brodskaya's working is drop dead gorgeous!
http://www.artyulia.com/index.php/Illustration
@ ASDF3001 I wasn't aware that twirling was also listed under quilling. I thought quilling pertained to the same style but was worked in thin strips of metals. I know that twirling is not worked in metals. It's been so long ago that I learned to do both in art class, I probably forgot that piece of information. Thanks for the reminder!
I really want to do this for a gift, but I'm struggling to find solid colored paper in a variety of hues that is not cardstock or construction paper. Where did you find your paper? Please help!! :o)
please help: i have bought the frame and attempted to put in the papers i prepared, but the frame (with the glass on) will not close up. what am i doing wrong? (to be more specific, the back of the frame does not sit well in the frame for the ''teeth'' to fall on it and close up.
hey, i got mine from copy centers. the only paper i find hard to find is black...
I haven't actually tried using it yet, but I'm planning on working with some origami paper that I found at the Japanese dollar store. One pack includes a variety of colors. You could also tried folded and rolled magazine pages for a different look.