Loving the Chevron!

In case you've been living under a rock, chevron's are a huge trend right now.  I think they're great, very modern, clean, simple.  So, when I got sick of having an ugly breaker box stare at me for the last 4 months, I decided that a piece of cool art would do just the trick, and I was dying to have some chevron pattern somewhere in the apartment.


Making this little art piece served not only to cover up the unappealing utility door, but also adds some pizzazz to our little home.  My husband and I share a very small, yet cozy 600 square foot apartment.  It's my first real home and I love it, but sometimes I feel like we live in a sardine can.  There's no more room on our living room walls for decor, so I was more than happy to make something to dress up another area of our humble abode.

Here's how I went about creating it:

I bought a plain canvas that was larger than the area I needed to cover.  Yay for Hobby Lobby and their weekly 40% off coupon!

I didn't have a lot of paint colors to choose from, and I wanted to stick with something fairly neutral (a man does live here after all).  I mixed some brown and white that I had to make a light tan color.

 Use a sponge (or a large brush or a paint roller) to paint the entire canvas.  I really liked the stippling effect the sponge had, but it's up to you!  Finish your base coat, and let dry.

The trickiest part was measuring out where the stripes should go to make it nice and even.  My canvas was 24" x 30" so I made a mark every 6 inches all along the sides of the canvas.  Each stripe was about 3 inches thick, so everything measured out pretty neatly.

I did not have any blue painters tape which I had planned on using, and since I'm lazy and didn't want to go to the store, I had to be resourceful and use duct tape.  Use the pencil markings to place your tape, having the points of chevron line up with your 6" markings on the short side and having the lines of the chevron end with the 6" markings on the long sides.  I used a ruler to make sure that everything was lining up evenly.

 

I decided to go with a dark brown for contrast.  It goes with our decor, it's not girly, and it will hopefully still match if/when we move and redecorate.

I sponged on the dark brown paint everywhere there wasn't duct tape.  You can paint an even coat or play with varying darker or lighter patches of color.

This is how it should look once you have all of the dark stripes painted.  Now, you just have to be patient and watch it dry.  I know it's hard; it's going to look so good!

After it's completely dry, carefully peel the tape off of the canvas.  I was really nervous about how the duct tape would work, especially putting it on top of a fresh coat of paint, but to my relief, it worked great.

Here is how it turned out!  It has that cool imperfection that makes art that much better.  I would love to have used some bright colors, but neutrals won out.  You, however, should use some fantastic pastels or neons because you can!

There are tons of options for using a chevron pattern.  Writing something on it in a 3rd color would make it even more personal and awesome.  I would like to write something on it, but can't come up with anything I really want to write.  Painting a pink and gray pattern with a monogram for a baby girl's nursery would be darling, or maybe a the numbers of a wedding date with the wedding colors for save-the-date pictures.  Like I said, there are tons of options.  Now go do them!  I did.