I have been hunting for antique oil and acrylic landscape paintings for about the last five years. These have always been notoriously hard to come by anyway, but since they’ve become wildly popular in the last year or two, my situation has not improved. The price for these antiques has gone way, way up and I certainly can’t afford the collection I really want. Modern landscape artists are seeing huge gains in the price of their artwork as oil and acrylic landscape paintings trends in the home decor stratosphere- good for them, but not so much for me!
But, did you know that you could easily create your own knock-off landscape paintings and art that look like antiques? Did you know that you can create the paintings for about $25? By using acrylics, which I find much easier to use than creating a watercolor landscape, the process becomes much more simple!
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If you’re a little bit creative and willing to try your hand at it, there’s a simple, super easy way, to create your own masterpiece painting without paying the prices that landscape artists demand!
Step One: Find a landscape photo on your phone or something not copyrighted online that you like the look and feel of.
Step Two: Print the size you want from a Discount Canvas Company. They’re always having sales, and we bought these for less than $20 each. It doesn’t have to be a clear photo, and it’s absolutely okay for it to be grainy.
I purchased four that I had sitting on my phone of the ocean a few minutes away and the tidal creek near our house.
This is the photo canvas I’ll be using to demonstrate the painting:
Step Three: After you’ve unpackaged the canvasses, paint the front of each canvas in a cross-thatch pattern (X) with a large brush using Clear Gesso. It appears white, but trust me, it will dry clear. The idea is to make sure that you’re filling in all of the tiny crevices on the canvas so you won’t need to layer your paint as much.
Tip: Make sure you’ve pulled off any loose hairs on the brush so they don’t stick inside the gesso.
This is what your canvasses will look like after you apply the gesso, but before it dries:
Here is the one I will be painting with the gesso applied:
This is what it looks like after it dries. Totally clear, though you can see the faint cross-thatch pattern.
Now you are ready for paint!
Step Four: Get out your acrylic paint, brushes, water for rinsing brushes, palette, and (optional) adjustable easel. If you don’t have an acrylic paint set: I use Liquitex Acrylics and you can get a basic set of colors relatively cheaply. I like mixing my own colors so I have a small set of mostly primary colors. They also save forever if you keep the caps tightly closed: I’ve had the same set for more than a decade and the paint is still good.
Tip: I like to start with the lighter sections and move to the darker sections. Then you can always come back and add highlights in lighter colors or details in darker colors.
The beauty of this process is that it doesn’t need to exactly match your photo. Try doing an impressionist painting, then try one with a more blended look. A great way to achieve a foggy landscape look is to blur your eyes over the photo and try to mix the edge colors.
Tip: Try mixing some of your colors with gesso if you need them to remain wet for longer (if you want to blend the edges). It also makes the colors slightly less opaque.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCAjv9T45Cw&w=560&h=315]
Step Five: Paint! Turn on some relaxing music, pour yourself some hot tea, and get to mixing colors on your palette and painting!
Tip: Don’t be afraid to try different brushes and strokes! The beautiful thing about acrylics is that you can layer over the top if you don’t like it!
Step Six (Optional): Scour craigslist/letgo/Facebook for the perfect gold frame. I frequently find BAD old art with great frames, so this is a fantastic way to upcycle those frames into something wonderful for your wall!
Tip: If you want to really do this on the cheap: find your frame with matting FIRST, and order the correct sized canvas to fit. You can paint the matting to match and then you don’t get into expensive items like new matting.
What do you think of our “masterpiece”?
Congratulations! You have just created your first landscape painting and you can proudly hang it on your wall!
Cost Breakdown:
Canvas: $20
Craigslist frame: $60
New Matting and Assembly from Michael’s: $160
Art Light (Optional): $73.95
Total: $313.95 (Yes, I absolutely recommend buying your frame before the canvas to cut out the re-matting cost!)
How about one more with that pretty light on?
What do you think?
I would love to see how your paintings turned out!
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