DIY // abstract gold leaf painting

One of my best friends in the whole wide world is having a baby in about a month.

Oh, and she lives in China.

But she’s here for the summer to have her baby and we get to shower her with love just like we would any of our other dear friends. For that, I am super grateful!

She started asking me for my input on her nursery a few months back, and it was so fun getting to see what she had pinned already for the little one’s room. Lots of bright white, hints of coral and mustard yellow. Simple. Feminine. Sweet. It is going to be perfect for her little baby girl!

We brainstormed about accessories and decided we would do some thrifting once she got back to Chicago. Art can be one of the hardest things to find though, especially when you are decorating a room with a really particular look in mind. And then, once you find that perfect piece, oh you know, the price tag. Yeah, that part.

So it got me thinking of this tutorial I had seen a little while back, one that I was waiting for just the right time to make. It also worked in my favor that I knew the colors she’d have in her room already so I could sort of surprise her.

What you need for this painting:

• gold leaf foil sheets
• spray adhesive for laying the gold leaf down
• rolled canvas or wrapped canvas, your preference (though rolled is fun because you can choose your own frame later and make it look fancier)
• acrylic paints (I’m not an art snob so I won’t tell you you have to have the most expensive brand here. I just went with the brand that had the colors I wanted)
• spatula and/or acrylic paint brushes (I ended up using both for various textures)

I bought a yard of primed canvas off the roll, since I know she has to transport this baby back to China, and framed would just be too much of a hassle.

I started out with globs of paint in random spots and spread it around with the spatula. Once the paint dried, I used a spray adhesive for the gold foil before adhering the gold foil in random spots.

Then painted over some of the edges of the gold foil to make it look more random.

Once the first round was done though, the painting felt a little too random to me, so I ended up making some “creative” adjustments, see below :)

Also, I had originally planned on doing one huge painting, but the canvas roll I got was really really large, and thought it would be fun to make two pieces to go side by side or on opposite walls of the room.

Here are the finished pieces below. I’m excited to see what they will look like framed!