Decoupage paintings from postcards and napkins (step-by-step process). DIY decoupage technique Panel decor: creative ideas

Decoupage is an ancient technique that allows you to decorate a wide variety of objects by gluing various cut-out pictures, fragments, etc. In this case, the result is covered with several layers of varnish, achieving a smooth surface. Today, using decoupage, you can make a beautiful box with your own hands from an ordinary box, restore old furniture, and also decorate the walls in your house.

The painting on the wall was and is its main decoration. Most often these are reproductions, photographic prints, less often – originals, albeit not of the most famous artists. But often not only paintings or graphic creations appear in frames, but also, for example, batik, as well as a decoupage painting.

The process of creating such a painting with your own hands looks like this:

  • Canvas primer. You can buy canvas in a special store, ready-made.
  • Painting frame. Most often, the frame is coated with bronze acrylic paint, or optionally white. The frame can be first rubbed with paraffin, then painted, and then rubbed with sandpaper. This will give the frame an antique look.
  • Preparing the drawing. Cut out a suitable size and shape; you can use napkins, or rather, their top layer. Immerse the picture in tea leaves if you want an antique effect.

How to make decoupage panels on canvas

The image, already prepared, must be carefully applied to the canvas and almost immediately it can be covered with glue. Some craftsmen prefer to paint over parts with acrylic paint, but this is not necessary.

Then in places where there will be cracks (if you make them), you need to coat them with acrylic varnish. After drying, you need to apply the next layer, a special faceted varnish. After it dries, cracks will appear that will need to be rubbed with bronze.

A decorative panel made by yourself can stylishly decorate the wall of your home or office.

Decoupage on canvas: a box of ideas (video)

Panel decor: creative ideas

You can decorate a panel, first of all, with a beautiful frame.

How to decorate a frame for a wall panel:

  • Mosaic. One of the most beautiful techniques, easy to perform. Suitable for both abstract paintings and classical subjects.
  • Buttons. Paint them with acrylic bronze paint after you cover the frame, it always looks great.
  • Newspaper tubes. A simple but interesting solution, they can frame almost any picture if you know how to lay it out correctly.

By the way, they do a lot of things with their own hands from newspaper tubes - baskets and boxes turn out almost like real ones.

Master class on decoupage (video)

Panel made from newspaper tubes with decoupage: master class

Newspaper tubes can not only act as a frame for your work, but also become a canvas for this unusual painting.

This is how canvas is made from tubes:

  • The newspaper sheet is divided into four parts, tubes are made using a knitting needle;
  • The edge of the strip is glued together with ordinary PVA glue, after which the tubes need to be glued into one sheet with stronger glue;
  • The edges of the canvas made of tubes are smoothed with scissors and then covered in two or three layers of acrylic paint;
  • After the paint has dried, proceed to decoupage - stick on the necessary fragments;
  • The resulting picture is covered with transparent acrylic varnish.

The result will be a relief canvas, and therefore a relief panel, which can be placed in a more standard frame.

Panel blanks for decoupage

It is not always possible to do such work from scratch, and if you have your treasure chest, that is, various preparations, the work will definitely be easier.

Blanks are fragments, pictures, clippings, or entire magazine sheets, napkins that you once caught your eye on. Nobody knows when this or that fragment may come in handy. So, get your sleigh ready in the summer.

A special moment is backgrounds for decoupage. Many of them can be found on the Internet, just by request. Print them out on a color printer, put them in your chest, and many problems will be quickly solved.

For example, you decided to do something using the decoupage technique on a New Year's theme, and if you already have backgrounds, the work will go faster.

Beautiful backgrounds for decoupage (video review)

New Year's panel: do-it-yourself decoupage

New Year's motifs look especially good on the walls of the house during the holiday season. You can cut out the necessary fragments from those napkins, since their choice today is huge. But it’s not just a New Year’s story that will help such a product become truly wintery and magical. This is where your tricks come into play.

For a New Year's panel you can use:

  • Glitter nail polish. Even nail polish will work for small fragments.
  • Salt and PVA. First a layer of glue, then white paint, and coarse salt - a wonderful imitation of snow.
  • Mitten-shaped base. Not just a rectangular or round canvas, but a mitten canvas that immediately sets the right mood.

Cardboard panel: decoupage step by step

If there is no canvas, and you are not in the mood to create a base from tubes, you can use regular cardboard. More precisely, the most ordinary one, but durable and thick. At the same time, it should not be brittle, otherwise all the work will go down the drain.

If you only have thin cardboard and want to work with it, you can “thicken” it yourself. This is done using the good old papier-mâché technique. Several layers of white napkins, and the cardboard will become strong and thick. Well, then the decoupage work is carried out according to the standard scenario.

Decoupage panels with putty: master class

And this is a non-trivial version of decoupage, in which you can end up with relief work.

Decoupage with putty is done like this:

  • Putty is applied to the base (canvas) with a spatula in a random direction. You need to wait for it to dry.
  • Protruding areas are sanded with sandpaper.
  • Next, use a brush to coat the work with the desired color of paint so that more paint is in the frame area.
  • Take a wet cloth and wipe off the paint, and then again, just dry it. This will give you the desired background.
  • Next you need to glue the motifs.
  • Using a spatula and putty, go over the almost finished work again.

Somehow on the Internet we accidentally came across DIY decoupage of paintings . The idea was very interesting and amazed me with its prostate! There are no costs, but the amazing result is simply amazing!

Required material:

  • Board
  • A sheet of paper (you can use A4 size)
  • PVA glue
  • Varnish (yacht, azure, parquet)
  • A cloth dampened with water
  • Fine skin
  • Brush

Step 1

Select the required drawing or photograph . We do it in a graphics editor mirror reflection and put it to print. It is important to choose the size of the sheet and the selected board, otherwise the picture will either not fit or the margins on the board will be too wide. The first stage of preparation is ready!

Step 2

We grease our board with PVA glue, above Place the prepared image face down . To ensure that the glue is evenly distributed under the sheet, wipe the sheet with a dry cloth. We leave our board until the glue dries completely I .

Step 3

Once the glue has completely dried, you can begin removing the paper. We wet a rag with water and saturate our board . The main thing is not to fill it, otherwise the picture will simply be washed away along with the glue.

Then, we begin to remove the excess layer of paper from the surface of the board - just roll the paper with your finger! It is important not to overdo it at this moment, as you can twist the sheet along with the design. But it is also important to remove as much of the top layer as possible. In general, we need that golden mean here. 🙂

In places where the sheet has already dried, you can wet it again with a wet cloth and continue rolling. In order to achieve a smooth surface, without lint, we go over the top with fine sandpaper. As a result, you should have a white surface with a barely noticeable pattern. In order to give the picture " Antique effect " - necessary sand, tear the edges in places .

Step 4

The most interesting and easy stage of decoupaging a painting! We simply open the painting with varnish. Apply varnish you need a continuous line (brush width) along the picture from edge to edge and necessarily in one layer . This is what we got!

Conclusion

Based on the experience gained, you can try to do modular picture , which is very popular now. Only in the store this pleasure is expensive, but with your own hands it is cheap and noble! You can also experiment with color pattern .

Good luck with your work!

In this article I will give another small master class on decoupage on canvas with my photographs. We will look at a very simple, quick and inexpensive way to decorate the walls of your home with artistic paintings.

The advantages of decoupage on canvas are that it will allow you to create any picture - from an ancient landscape in a gilded frame to a modern piece where no frame is needed.

To do this you will need:

The canvas itself is suitable for decoupage; it can be easily purchased at any art store, in completely different sizes, and you can immediately select a frame there if necessary. The store-bought canvas is already ready for use and does not require additional preparation;

a napkin with the selected pattern, you can also use a decoupage card. But first it will need to be thinned so that the structure of the canvas appears - soak the card in warm water for about fifteen minutes, then carefully roll up the excess paper from the back side. It is also necessary to layer the napkin and use only the first bright layer;

PVA glue, brushes number 2, 4 and 14 - very comfortable, of different densities and widths, suitable for straightening the napkin and applying glue, and a regular dishwashing sponge for pressing the napkin to the canvas;

- file - decoupage on canvas is best done using the “file” technique;

— acrylic varnish for the finishing stage;

- hammer, nail and fasteners to hang the picture on the wall.

Let's start our step-by-step master class with a photo on decoupage on canvas

First of all, you need to decide whether the napkin will cover the entire surface of the canvas or not. Based on this, we will proceed further.

For my decoupage on canvas, I chose a cheerful, bright ornament, and my design will be made up of various pieces of a napkin. They must be torn off at the edges (I like to do this with tweezers in places close to the drawing), otherwise a sharp transition from the pasted fragment to the canvas will be visible.

First, we assemble a pattern from napkins on the host like a mosaic and look at the future picture, remove or add something, you can change places, choosing the best location.

Only after this can you start gluing.

To glue the napkin to the canvas, I will use the “file” method, i.e. I place the napkin “face down” on the file, spray water from a spray bottle on top, straighten the paper, use a brush to expel excess air bubbles, remove all possible wrinkles, and then carefully apply file onto the base, so that the napkin is between the file and the canvas.

I smooth the top of the film with a sponge using pressing movements so that the structure of the canvas appears through the napkin, and carefully remove the file. Then we take diluted PVA glue with water, about 50 to 50, and carefully brush over the entire surface of the drawing. And so on with each individual fragment.

For convenience, let’s start from the edges so that later we can more accurately position the middle pattern. There is no need to strive for perfect symmetry - this is handmade.

The final stage of the master class in napkin decoupage on canvas - varnish coating

Before applying acrylic varnish, let the glue dry, I left it overnight. In the morning I varnished it in two layers. Let it dry. We make sure that there are no folds from the napkin and no air bubbles, since it will not be possible to clean it with sandpaper - the surface relief of the canvas can be ruined.

As you can see, the design changed a little during the process, this happens, and since the ornament was created from separate fragments of a napkin, nothing had to be altered for this.

Now we need to hang the picture on the wall. We hammer a small nail into the wall, before using glue, I attached the fastener to the canvas on the back side and hung it on the wall. That's it, our picture is ready!

Cleaning up after ourselves

After work, don’t forget about tools and materials. Be sure to close all paints and varnishes tightly, wash your brushes and sponges, or better yet, have a glass of water with liquid soap or dishwashing detergent diluted in it, and immediately put your brushes in there after use. This way they will serve you for a long time, because a good tool is expensive.

How to make your own canvas for Decoupage?

The canvas for the master class was purchased at the store, but you can also make the canvas for decoupage yourself. Moreover, both a real canvas and its imitation.

Making a canvas

We take very thick cardboard or thin MDF, PVA glue, white acrylic paint, primer for wood or cardboard, and fabric with visible weaving threads.

Cover 1 cardboard or MDF with a primer and let dry;

2 apply 2 layers of white acrylic paint with intermediate drying of 30 minutes;

3 cover with glue and glue the fabric to the base. The size of the fabric should be slightly larger than cardboard so that the edges can be wrapped;

4 put under a press until it dries completely, otherwise the base may sag;

5 If necessary, you can go over it again with white paint. That's it, the real canvas with your own hands is ready.

How to make an imitation canvas?

We take any hard surface of the required size, prepare it (prime it if it’s wood/cardboard, degrease it if it’s glass/plastic).

Then, mix white acrylic paint and putty (gypsum, alabaster) in equal proportions, and apply the mixture onto the base with a rough construction brush. First we go in one direction from edge to edge, make sure that our “threads” are clearly visible, and let them dry.

Afterwards, we do the same, but only the strokes go perpendicular to the first layer, thereby creating the effect of fabric, interlacing threads, and creating an imitation of canvas.

As you can see, decoupage on canvas is a fairly easy way to create a beautiful picture. In this master class, I showed the main stages and principles of working with the material, which should help everyone in their creativity.

  • a piece of fiberboard approximately 39 by 39 cm.
  • PVA glue
  • A piece of canvas approximately 38 by 38 cm.
  • white acrylic or latex paint
  • napkin with one large pattern
  • acrylic lacquer
  • two small screws and a string (to hang our work)
  • ceiling MOLDING made of polystyrene for the frame (similar to a ceiling plinth, only it is attached not to the corner but to the ceiling itself, so one side is flat)
  • glue gun

Preparation method

  1. I coated a piece of fiberboard with PVA glue, placed the canvas on top, ironed it thoroughly with my hands, coated it with more glue on top and dried it. Primed with white paint and dried (photo 1)
  2. The hardest part is gluing the napkin. Under no circumstances should you glue directly to the canvas, it is very difficult!!! (checked). In my opinion, spraying a napkin with a spray bottle and ironing it to stretch it is also useless. In any case, after this procedure, my napkin became almost smaller in size than it was originally. Since I haven’t seen large files yet, I secured two thick plastic bags with tape (files can also be used).
  3. So, place the bags on a flat surface, with a napkin on top, face DOWN. (photo 2)
  4. We take the most delicate brush (preferably a synthetic fan), dip it in water and start from the middle (!) to blot our napkin in a circle. It fits well, we just need to help a little, lifting it a little by the edges and lowering it. This way we get to the corners. (photo 3, 4, 5)
  5. Coat the primed canvas with diluted PVA glue. We turn the oilcloth and napkin over onto the canvas and lay it flat IMMEDIATELY. Without removing the oilcloth, we expel all the air, ironing it with our hands from the center to the edges. Very carefully remove the oilcloth, coat the top with diluted glue with a flat brush, barely touching the surface of the napkin. Let's dry it. (photo 6)
  6. Let's make a frame. We cut the molding with a paper knife at an angle of 45 degrees into pieces of the required size. Glue it to the fiberboard and canvas with a glue gun. (photo 7).
  7. If there are any flaws in the corners of the frame, you can putty it and smooth it out carefully with a sharp knife.
  8. All that remains is to cover everything (both the frame and the napkin) with acrylic varnish in several layers. Even before this, I diluted a little bronze powder in acrylic varnish and touched the middle part of the frame with a sponge.
  9. We screw in two self-tapping screws from the back, attach a rope, hang it on the wall and admire the work done. (photo 8,9)
  10. Well, who will now say that we are not artists!!!?

Additional Information

If you get a napkin with a large pattern, do not rush to divide it into pieces and paste it over something, try to make a small masterpiece out of it (actually not so small - the size of the finished product with a frame 4 cm wide was 40 by 40 cm! ).

But there are also napkins with two drawings 16.5 by 33 cm...

Let's make a small panel for a dacha or country house using the decoupage technique on canvas.

To make the panel we will need:

Materials:

  • - wooden frame,
  • - a piece of thick cardboard,
  • - a piece of canvas or thick linen fabric,
  • - napkin for decoupage,
  • - acrylic primer,
  • - PVA glue
  • - glue for decoupage,
  • - acrylic paints,
  • - matte acrylic varnish,
  • - candle,
  • - dried flowers.

Tools:

  • - sandpaper,
  • - brushes,
  • - scissors,
  • - foam roller
So let's get started!

Manipulations with the “picturesque” canvas:

On a piece of thick cardboard, cut out based on the internal dimensions of the wooden frame, we glue a piece of canvas using PVA, slightly larger in size than a piece of cardboard. Let's send it to dry under the load.

When the glue dries, cut off the excess canvas with scissors.

Apply acrylic primer to the canvas using a roller or brush. Let's dry it thoroughly.

We place the top pictorial layer of the napkin on the primed canvas and begin gluing the napkin from the center to the edges, carefully smoothing it with a brush, then, having collected a little decoupage glue on a flat synthetic brush, we begin to “drive” the napkin into the canvas. We drive the napkins over the entire area.

When the glue has dried, cut off the excess napkin and cover our “picturesque” canvas with matte acrylic varnish. After the varnish has dried, the panel is ready, let’s make a decent frame for it.

Manipulations with a wooden frame:

We sand the wooden frame, then cover it with two layers of acrylic primer on both sides, with intermediate drying.

Using a brush, apply the first layer of acrylic paint, in my case ocher, to the front side of the frame, and let it dry. Once again!

Using a piece of candle or paraffin, rub the “protruding” parts of the frame and its edges in some places.

Let's paint the front and back sides of the frame with acrylic paint, in my case it's burnt umber, a darker paint than that applied in the first layer.

After the paint has completely dried, we will rub our frame with sandpaper. In those places where the frame was rubbed with paraffin, the top layer of paint will come off and the lower layer will appear - lighter. The frame has acquired the appearance of an object that time has not spared at all... Let’s insert a “picturesque” panel into the frame

Let's add some zest to our frame: collect a small bouquet of green dried flowers and glue it to the frame, decorate it with a raffia bow.