Decorate Your Wall with Your Own Circle Painting

Attention home stagers. Do you have a wall to fill with something that adds a layer of interest to a room without becoming a focal point?

Then I have a quick and easy art project that's perfect for you.

This could be the shortest tutorial in my series of DIY art for home staging.

Put paint on bowl rim. Invert bowl on canvas. And there you have a “modern masterpiece.”

A circle is a symbol of continuity and completion. It’s a comforting and at the same time, uplifting image. Sounds to me like something every staged home should have.

In Japanese ink painting, a hand-draw circle executed with one or two brush strokes takes discipline and focus. Similar paintings of a simple, isolated circle and of multiple circles have been done by well-known American and European artists as well.

If you would like to see samples of contemporary circle paintings, here  is a post by Nancy Marcus

Now you can add your name to the list of artists. We’ll cheat a little and do it the easy way.

Circle prints can be small, medium or even gigantic. This medium size print
hangs in the home of designer Meredith Heron.

Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky's circle painting from the early 20th century.
Of course, it is handpainted, but you can see the appeal colorful concentric circles have.   

 What You Need

• 1 large bowl
• Throwaway plastic cup
• Hot glue gun and glue stick
• Aluminum foil
• Small amount of craft paint or leftover house paint
• 1 primed canvas bigger than the circumference of the bowl

How to Do

Invert the bowl and glue the base of the cup to the base of the bowl. This will be a handle to make lifting the bowl off the printed canvas happen without any oops.

The plastic cup gives you a handle. As an alternative, you can fashion one out of duct tape.

Lay down a sheet of aluminum foil big enough to accommodate the inverted bowl. If you need to overlap two sheets of foil to make it big enough, place a few dabs of hot glue under the top layer of foil to keep the foil layers from shifting. 

Invert the bowl onto the foil. Outline the rim of the bowl with craft paint. If using house paint, use a plastic spoon to generously drizzle a line around the bowl’s rim.

I used gold paint. Black is common, but almost any color is fine, depending on your decor.

Here's where the discipline and focus come in handy. You have just one shot at this. No second guessing or slipping.

Have your blank canvas next to your foil and bowl. Look at your canvas and decide where you will make your imprint. Lift the bowl, carefully press the rim onto the canvas, and rotate the bowl a half turn to be sure you have distributed the paint in a circle.
  

Lift the bowl. You can wash the paint off immediately. Use a hair dryer to heat the glue to remove the disposable cup, being carefully not to burn your fingers on the hot metal bowl. Any glue residue you can remove with acetone (nail polish remover).

Let the canvas dry in a level position to prevent any runs (unless like some artists you want the look of paint runs). Sign your name -- or even a fictitious name -- near the bottom edge of the painting

Finally, hang your handsome new artwork on that blank wall.  

There's hardly any mess with this method of painting. If you recycle a disposable bowl,
you  can discard the bowl with the aluminum foil when you're done.

Your circle won't look like a mechanical rendering, and that's the point. You can make it
more "active" by moving the bowl around a little, or even stamping multiple times. 

It's almost impossible to create an ugly circle painting. I made these colorful prints by
dipping two different size glasses in paint. Using glasses, you don't need a handle.

If you want more ideas to stage your own home the thrifty way, download my eBook, DIY Home Staging Tips to Sell Your Home Fast and for Top Dollar.