Our Orange Ombre Wall Art {tutorial}

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Last week when my step daughter’s were here, we had a little fun crafting and this was one of the projects that we did. I have seen ombre wall art all over pinterest and have always wanted to try making my own wall piece. Ombre is just a term used for using colors in the same shade family and featuring darker to lighter colors ect. I decided to use two different orange colors that I already had and used my son’s crayola white paint to lighten both of them, ultimately ending up with 4 different shades of orange for our wall piece.

 I found this fabulous inspirational picture on pinterest and decided to replicate it. Maura did such a wonderful job with the design, I couldn’t resist! While her art piece was a bit bigger than I needed, I decided to do mine on large poster foam board so I could hang it where ever I wanted. Don’t be afraid to create a wall mural on a piece of foam poster board. It’s a fantastic way to avoid painting on your walls (in case you are a renter) and the poster board gives you the flexibility to move the art piece from room to room. Don’t worry how about how to hang it, the 3M command strips work great!

First, gather you colors and some white paint in order to lighten one or two of the colors in order to create the ombre effect.

Next trace a circle where you want the stripes to meet.

Then begin by adding your painters tape, I used #2080 Scotch-Blue painters tape for delicate surfaces. I started in one corner and brought the tape over to the circle.

Continue to do this until you have the pieces of tape where you want them. It’s so easy!

Once you are finished, you will have all of your tape joined at the circle. Be sure that where the tape over laps the other tape, that the angles are crisp and clean as shown below. Meaning,  you don’t have multiple pieces over each piece.

Then gather your paint supplies and start painting. I used tangerine dream by Benjamin Moore and a custom color match by Behr Ultra (here is the custom color code – clrnt:/384th, FL/51, RUL/65 and TL/57). The color is a salmon color and it was left over from a previous project. Needless to say, I don’t remember what color I was matching from but I can tell you, it’s very similar to Citrus Hill and Powdered Petals by Sherwin Williams. I used my son’s white crayola paint to lighten both of these colors and a drop of buttermilk by Americana (acrylic craft paint). You can use any colors and any white brand to mix . These just happen to be the colors I had laying around.

Next, I started applying the different colors to the board.

I love these shades of orange together!

Can you see how the lighter versions of the orange shade provide a nice color effect?

 

I am so happy with how our orange ombre wall art turned out that I may try this technique with shades of blue. Pretty fun right? Just remember, pick a color or two within the same family and then just add white to lighten it. I added 2 part white, 1 part orange color but just mix until you find a color you love. By adding the buttermilk color, it allowed me to achieve a unique shade of orange without it being “to light” if that makes any sense. I am no color expert and I will be honest, I don’t know the first thing about proper color mixing and the rules to follow. I just do what I like and what looks good. Keep it simple! 🙂

Linking to Tidy Mom’s lovin it party!