All right, you doubting Thomases. Yes, we can all be artists if we just put our minds to it. And, to go a step further, I'm going to proclaim that anyone can create inexpensive art if he or she wants.

That's right. Matt and I proved it to ourselves during one of the Room by Room episodes we were taping. Basically, it was getting down to the wire, and we had nearly exhausted the budget. However, I felt there were still a couple of blank wall spaces that needed a punch of color. When I brought this up with Matt, he said, "Well, then, let's make our own art." And that's exactly what we did and you can too!

Materials List:

• Acrylic craft paints in colors to match with your decor
• Several artist brushes in a variety of widths
• Watercolor paper
• Scissors
• Tape
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Frame with a matte included

Fortunately for us, our room decor was rather contemporary, and abstract designs were the perfect fit. If your room is more traditional, use softer shapes and suggest flowers or fences or buildings. Keep it abstract but in lovely colors!

Instructions:

1 Start by lightly drawing the approximate size of the matte opening onto a piece of watercolor paper. We made sure to make the lines light and slightly larger than the opening, to give us an idea just how much of that "white" we had to cover.

Well, I got busy right away, creating a jagged horizontal effect using row after row of a variety of the colors. This is a design I had on a bedspread when I was in college, and it was the first thing that came to my mind. Once I had that one finished, I quickly grabbed another piece of paper and began developing an almost woven appearance that had horizontal AND vertical lines. How creative!

OK, it wasn't all that creative, but once it was complete, it had some interest to it. And, I felt that I'd seen less involved pieces of art hanging in some of the museums I've visited, so I was feeling pretty good about my designs.

Once our creations were dry, we tried embellishing some of them by spritzing watered-down black paint over the top. Well, here's my suggestion about that. Practice on a piece of newspaper BEFORE trying something that could potentially ruin your piece of art.
And that's all I'll say about that.

Now I can't really speak for Matt and what was going through his mind while he was painting, but I'm sure it had nothing to do with the art he was creating. I'm sure either the basketball game from the night before or what snack he could grab next was rattling around in his brain. But you know what? It didn't matter; his abstract design was just as appealing as mine, and we had a great time creating them.

2 The last and most rewarding step is to center the finished piece in the matte and tape it into place. When you finally turn the framed piece over and see what you've created, you'll be shocked at how good you really are. When friends and family members want to know where you found such one-of-a-kind art pieces, ask them if they're interested in a commissioned work by the artist.

Afterall, you know the artist personally!

Shari

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