This post was sponsored by Krylon. All opinions are my own. This post may contain affiliate links.
Wall art is one of my favorite DIY projects. We’ve built countless DIY wall art pieces over the years and it’s always fun to make something unique each time. In this post, we’re going to create a large geometric wall art piece using minimal tools.
In fact, you could technically make this wall art without any power tools at all! Instead of a miter saw, try miter shears. Instead of nailing the pieces in place, use super glue!
Alright, let’s dive in and make some DIY geometric wall art!
Recommended Tools:
Shopping List:
- (1) ½” 2×4 sheet of pre-primed plywood
- (2) ¼” x 36 square poplar dowels
- (3) ⅜” x 36 square poplar dowels
- (6) 1/4x2x4 poplar boards
- (3) 1/4x3x4 poplar boards
- Clear drying wood glue
- ⅝” nails
- Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Satin Midnight Garden (find a Krylon retailer near you)
- Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Matte Pale Sage
- Krylon Metallic in Gold Leaf
Dimensions
This artwork is 24.5”x48.5”. The frame sticks out 1.5” from the wall. The beauty of DIY wall art is that you can always customize the dimensions (and the design) to fit your space!
We chose these dimensions because you can buy a pre-cut plywood project panel in this size. That means there’s no need for a circular saw to cut the plywood down yourself!
How to Make Large, Geometric Wall Art
STEP 1: SPRAY PAINT YOUR PLYWOOD
Your plywood panel is going to be the base of your artwork. Since there is a lot of whitespace in this design, you’ll want to pick a color that you are excited about. We chose Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Matte Pale Sage for our plywood.
Krylon Fusion All-In-One is our go-to spray paint because it offers great coverage, it’s durable, it comes in a lot of awesome colors, and it doesn’t require priming or sanding prior to applying!
Yes, we chose a pre-primed plywood panel, but the primer isn’t required. We just like to use pre-primed plywood because it doesn’t have any knots or much texture.
Before applying spray paint, be sure to shake up the can for a minute or two. Once it’s ready to spray, start spraying off of the surface of the wood and then spray in lines, slightly overlapping the previous line with each pass.
We applied 4 light coats of spray paint to the plywood, waiting just one minute between coats.
STEP 2: CUT DOWN YOUR FRAME PIECES
We want to cut down the frame pieces early on so that we can use the leftover pieces when creating the design on the wall art.
You’ll need (4) 1/4x2x4 pieces for this step. Two of the pieces you’ll leave at the full 48” long. The other two pieces you’ll cut down to 24.5”.
STEP 3: STAIN THE FRAME PIECES
You can definitely spray paint the frame pieces–the gold leaf spray paint looks amazing as a frame! For this piece, we decided to add a little warmth to it by staining the frame.
We applied Minwax Pre-Stain Wood Conditioner and then stained with Minwax stain in Dark Walnut for a rich color.
STEP 4: MAKE YOUR CUTS
Since we’re using minimal tools for this project, we’re going to cut all of our pieces precisely down to size. If you don’t want to be as precise, you can always cut one side and then allow the board to extend past the edge. You’ll install the pieces and then trim the excess with a circular saw instead of cutting them all to size up front.
If using a miter saw, you’ll want to first prep your miter saw for cutting small pieces.
We’ll walk you through how to create our design, but you can also use this process to create your own custom design.
First, lay out the general design you would like to create. This will help you keep track of the design and what pieces you want to cut next.
We’ll start by cutting the most extreme angles to get them out of the way. For our piece, this means cutting (1) ⅜” dowel, (1) 1/4×2, and (1) 1/4×3 piece at 70-degrees on one side.
Next, we’ll rotate the saw to 20-degrees to cut the other side of these pieces. Line up the 70-degree side with the bottom edge of the plywood. Position them so that the 1/4×3 board hits at approximately the halfway point of one of the short sides of the plywood.
No need to measure precisely. This is abstract, geometric art. The gaps between boards can vary and the lengths don’t need to precisely match a “plan.”
Instead, we’ll use a pencil to mark where the slats begin to overhang off the plywood edge. This is where we will cut. We’ll use this “measuring” process for all of the slat pieces.
If you are making a custom design or switching up the angles, you can take this pencil mark over to the miter saw and adjust the miter gauge until the angle of the saw lines up with the angle of the line. This is an easy way to determine any angle!
Cut the three pieces at 20-degrees to the lengths you marked with your pencils. These will be our “main” or anchoring pieces that will help us determine all the rest of the measurements.
Now that those are cut, we can work on the (3) pieces that are pressed up against the 1/4×3 board at a 90-degree angle. Since the side touching the other boards isn’t angled, we only need to cut one side for each of these pieces.
Line the pieces up against the 1/4×3 and then mark where the bottom of the piece crossed over the sheet of plywood. Make your cuts –they should still be at 20-degrees.
Next we’ll move onto the set of three boards that comes off of the main 1/4×3 at an angle. These are cut at 35-degree angles on the side that is touching the main 1/4×3.
Cut the first side and then line that angled side up on the main 1/4×3. Mark where to cut the second side of these pieces. Make your cuts–these should be 55-degrees. Note: if your miter saw only cuts up to 50-degrees, you’ll want to knock out the 55-degree angle cuts first using the same technique that was used to cut the 70-degree angels.
Next we’ll cut the 5 pieces that come off the 35-degree angled pieces. These will all be cut 35-degrees on one side and 90-degrees on the other and are cut from 1/4×2” boards.
Since you can’t use the edge of the plywood as a guide for 2 of the pieces, I’ll give you the measurements we used as a guide. The long side of those pieces are approximately 9.75” and 8.25”.
Now all that’s left to cut are the ¼” dowels. If using a miter saw instead of miter shears, I would recommend replacing the scrap piece of wood that’s glued to the back of your miter saw fence. Since we’ve cut multiple angles, the gap is likely pretty wide now and won’t be as supportive.
Small dowels like this have a tendency to want to snap when cutting, so you want to add the scrap piece of wood to the back to support it as much as possible.
The vertical ¼” dowels will be cut at 90-degrees on one side and 20-degrees on the other. The horizontal dowels should be cut at 20-degrees on one side and 35-degrees on the other side.
STEP 5: SPRAY PAINT YOUR PIECES
Now that all of our pieces are cut, it’s time to spray paint them! Be sure to reference the back label for spray painting instructions to get the best results.
We used Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Satin Midnight Garden for all of the design pieces, except for the ¼” dowels. Those we spray painted with Krylon Metallic in Gold Leaf.
We’ve tried out a lot of gold spray paints over the years and I always end up choosing Krylon’s Gold Leaf. It truly gives the look of metal. It catches the light and shimmers in the most beautiful way! We applied 3 light coats of it to the ¼” dowels.
For the remaining pieces, we applied 3 light coats of Krylon Fusion All-In-One in Satin Midnight Garden, which is a new color that just came out in 2023!
As you’re spraying these pieces, be sure to spay the sides of the boards as well. The Krylon Fusion All-In-One can makes this super easy because you can spray it at any angle!
STEP 6: INSTALL THE FRAME
Since we cut all of the pieces down to the right size already, we’ll install the frame pieces first to assist with installing the design pieces.
Start by attaching the long side frame pieces using glue and ⅝” nails. The back of the frame should be flush with the back of the ½” plywood.
Once both long sides are installed, install the short side frame pieces using glue and ⅝” nails. The edges should be flush with the outside edges of the long frame pieces you just installed.
STEP 7: INSTALL THE DESIGN
To install the design, you’ll want to make sure to use clear drying glue. It’s likely that some of the glue will seep out of the sides, especially on those thin dowels.
First, layout your design within the frame so that you know where all of the pieces go. Then pick up a piece and apply glue to the back. Position it and then tack it in place with (2) ⅝” nails. If any glue seeps out, remove it with a damp paper towel.
Continue this process for all of the remaining pieces, except for the ¼” dowels.
Since the ¼” dowels are so delicate, we’ll install these with just glue. Apply a bead of glue to the back and then put them in place. Apply pressure and hold them in place for at least 30 seconds.
STEP 8: HANG YOUR NEW ARTWORK
There are several ways to hang your new artwork. We hung this one by installing d-rings and wire across the back.
French cleats and d-rings (without the wire) are always great hanging options, especially for larger (and heavier) pieces of artwork.
In terms of height, the general rule of thumb is to hang it so that the middle of the artwork is approximately 60” from the floor. Remember, that’s just a guideline. You can always hang it however high or low you want.
The beauty of this geometric design is that you can always choose to hang it vertically or horizontally based on what works best in your space.
There you have it! In just a few hours, you can have your own custom piece of artwork! This large piece of art is such to make a statement in any room you hang it in.
For more spray paint project ideas, be sure to check out the following posts:
