How to Make 3D Artwork

This article is about making a three dimensional piece of art.

I mentioned this to a couple of people in the last month or so.
It is such a good idea that I hope you find it interesting.

How to Make 3D Artwork

Here is a simple way to use old items you have lying around the house to make a stunning piece of art.

When you try this method I am sure you will be amazed by your results. It can be hard to visualize how this will look, but it does turn out really well.

What you do is collect together items that have different textures, spray them all a metallic colour, and then arrange them onto a black velvet background. Layer some of the items for an interesting look.

Does this work?

I first saw this style of artwork at college. All the students arrived with what seemed to me to be a load of junk. At that point they did not know why they needed the items, they had only been told to bring in a range of things with various textures.

Some had plastic fruit, old coins, keys, corrugated paper, patterned wallpaper, nuts, sandpaper, hair clips, silk flowers, anything and everything!

The teacher arrived with a roll of black velvet and several tins of spray paint in gold and silver.

Everyone selected some of their things to spray paint and then choose whether to use either gold or silver paint to spray them. They used just one metallic colour for all the items in the final piece.

There were a couple of large cardboard boxes in the room which were used as spray booths.

While the items were drying, large pieces of thick cardboard were cut for the background. Once the background cardboard was cut it was covered in black velvet which was glued and taped onto the rear of the board.

At this point the whole project still did not look too promising, however once the items started to be arranged on the velvet covered background there was a buzz of excitement.

The whole thing looked great and it was easy!

A lot of time went into placing the things, however even the ones which were thrown together looked really good. Once the layout of the objects was finalized the items were glued to the background.

This is an excellent method of making your own stylish artwork.

You can group items that are all on one theme. For example a music theme could include an old vinyl record, CD, old cassette with some of the tape pulled out, child's musical toy, bells, and anything else that will add texture to the final piece.

Or you could just use a range of items that you have to hand.

Other ideas

This works best with a dark background but it does not have to be black, it could be brown or a dark wine colour. The metallic colour could be pewter or bronze; there are a wide range of metallic colours.

Remember that you want to have some contrast between the background and the metallic colour. It looks best when there is a good contrast between the dark of the background and the light of the painted objects.

This artwork will be three dimensional and that means that it will need to have a box frame (where there is a space between the background and the glass at the front).

Framing it will help to keep the dust from gathering on the items and keep it looking great.

Tip - Most of the items were glued, but heavier things were tied on with thin wire. The wire ran around the object through the velvet and cardboard and tied or twisted on the rear.

As the backing is cardboard you cannot use very heavy things. Objects that are tied with wire had the wire fed through a large, flat button at the back before tying to help spread the load.

Another object was glued on top to hide the wire.