Wall decor and home decor, in general, is becoming a trend now and almost every woman I’ve met loves interior decor and want to be in charge to decorate their home and for me when opportunities like this to decorate a place comes I tend to grab it and put my creativity in action.
I wouldn’t call myself a painter but I’d rather say painting is a hobby for me!
I’ve always had a passion for painting and drawing but never considered that one day I would really love it as I do now, though when I was a teenager I flirted with the ideas of studying Creative art and become a journalist it didn’t work out, and as I started growing up the ideas of studying it began depreciating in my mind so I decided to study something of the moment, and I landed myself a BA (Hon) in Public Relation and Marketing to become a business tycoon.
I first sighted this colourful modern abstract Zebra wall portrait on Pinterest and I pinned it to my board. Some of you might know Pinterest but not understand its functionality, it’s a place “social network” packed with inspirational ideas of interests and hobbies where you can find some really cool easy painting ideas or other stuff and Pin them. Well, when I saw the painting I was impressed by the beauty of the animal, it’s boldness and colours on the great big canvas frame so I Pinned it to recreate it later which brings us here.
With the inspiration I got, I went to the shop and purchased a 70cm x 100cm plain white canvas, some acrylic paints and paintbrushes. The few times I have painted I’ve preferred using acrylic paint especially matte acrylic paint, I know choices differ but if you ever think of painting and don’t know exactly which kind of paint to use here is a good tip of the 10 best acrylic paint sets that both beginners and professionals artist loves to use and 5 reasons why you should try painting with acrylic instead of oils.
BRUSHES USED
- Round brush
- Flat brush
- Roller brush
- Angle brush
So let’s dive into how I painted this great big canvas. First of all, I drew the animal on the canvas to give me precision and idea of how to paint as it could be a bit confusing when the drawings are blurry.
After drawing I began painting the background into black using the black acrylic paint which helped identify the strips on the zebra body more easily. As you can see in the picture the pattern of stripes on the zebra is unique and different in sizes so are the brushes.
The strips on the underbelly I drew them wider than the strips on the rump while the ones on the shoulder are a little bit thinner, if you look a bit further to its upper body you’ll notice the strip on the neck is thinner up to the head. The ears stand out with almost little black paint coat, and the leg I wasn’t too sure if to add some more strips.
It took quite some time to complete this step, though at this point I was just wishing the canvas was a computer device and I would just sketch a rough zebra and the auto draw would just covert it into a real drawing and that would make things easier.
I know you might be asking now what more is here to paint? Well, there’s a lot to do because the painting is not complete yet. The aim is to add colours to the strips, if I was going for just a black and white abstract painting I would have left it like this and it would still look ok but I prefer to add some salt to the soup to bring out the taste.
Now we are going to be painting the strips into multiple colours and I’ll be using 8 different colours ” red, blue, green, pink, silver, yellow, orange and purple”.
The acrylic paints were a little bit too liquid for my liking so I added a neutral Acrylic matte paint to each of them to thicken the paste and reduce shine and it really helped. It’s a special kind of basic acrylic matte gel that adds body to your paint for better blending and gives it a finish matte look. I would also like to mention that I had a bowl of water beside me where I soaked the brushes to avoid them from drying up and a sponge to suck out the water from it before using it.
Acrylic paints dry quickly and they could dry up on the brushes so you’d need to keep them wet and clean after use wash then quickly, use an alcohol or a hand sanitiser.
There are different kinds of technics of painting and each person with his or her own preferences but I personally prefer not to use any kind of paint that has shine.
I coated each strip 4 times and when I finished painting the colours on the canvas I realised some things were missing and it needed some cleanup; so I decided to add some more Nike strips on the leg to complete the zebra body structure, painted the borders of the strips black to correct and sharpen the strips to look more defined, and then finally painted the whole sides of the canvas to remove any stains and imperfection.
This framed art is functional as well as decorative it refreshes my space. I wanted something that could complement my couch as the colour is also unique and selective though elegant. I feel quite fulfilled how it turned out. I’m looking forward to doing some more painting again soon.
It’s a perfect wall decoration you can hang anywhere in your home whether, in your living room, bedroom, kids room as kids loves animal portrait, guess room, office or in your hotel.
If you like this wall decor portrait of zebra you can commission me to make yours, for a friend or relatives as is a great gift idea.
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xxx
Hilda
sassymirrorbyhilda.com 