Make Your Own DIY Moody Vintage Faux Oil Painting For Free
Inside: How to make a paper print look like a vintage oil painting on a budget with free public domain artwork, Mod Podge, and an old frame!
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Do you want an easy way to add the vintage oil painting trend to your home for as little as free?
If you’ve been scrolling home decor on social media you’ve probably seen old oil paintings popping up everywhere from kitchen counters to gallery walls. Will it be a long-lived trend? One worth investing lots of money and time searching for just what you want?
If you’re like me and want some for home decor accents that you can switch out, real vintage oil paintings probably aren’t worth the time and money. With their popularity right now the stores are selling some fake ones, but you can make your own quickly and easily for very little money!
As I was decorating for fall I was inspired by the moody design aesthetic and its richness, warmth, and coziness for the season. And what better way to bring that vibe to the living room shelves than a couple of vintage fall art scenes?
I already had everything I needed—gold frames, a printer, and Mod Podge, so this craft didn’t cost me a dime!
What You Need to Make a Faux Vintage Oil Painting.
- Vintage Art Printout
- Frame
- Matte Mod Podge
- Artist brushes in Assorted Sizes
Where Can I Find Free Vintage Artwork?
There’s a vast library of vintage artwork available on the internet for anyone to use for free! Because these original oil paintings were often created before copyright laws existed, no one owns the rights to them and they are part of the public domain for private or commercial use.
Here are just a few sites where you can find public domain vintage art with a free download:
How to Search, Download, and Print the Art.
1. Filter Your Search.
There are hundreds if not thousands of pieces of public domain artwork on these sites to browse through, but most will let you filter your search. Filter for “oil” or “painting” to get rid of results like sculptures or photography.
If you’re looking for a certain theme or style, you can try filtering your results even further. For example, you might search for landscapes, botanicals, pastoral, beaches, or a particular country or season. I believe I filtered by “fall landscapes”.
2, Download the Art.
First, double-check that the art is in the public domain. It should list one of the following in the description: Open Access, Public Domain, No Copyright, or Creative Commons.
Choose a high resolution. The resolution is usually listed in pixels somewhere near the download button. Download the highest resolution you can to avoid a fuzzy, pixelated image. If you’re printing something smaller like a 5×7 or 8×10, download at a minimum of 2000px. For larger prints, up that to at least 2500-3000px.
3. Resize the Download.
After you’ve downloaded and saved your digital download, resize it in an editing program. I use Canva, which is free and simple to use.
In Canva, when you choose “create a design”, you’ll click on “custom size” at the bottom of the menu and enter whatever size you want (change it from pixels to inches first). Next, click on “uploads” on the left side tab and then the purple “upload files” button at the top to upload the digital files for your artwork. Drag and drop it into the empty design page. You can slide in the sides of the art to fit within your desired size.
To download the resized image, click the “share” button at the top right, “download” from the menu, and choose “PDF Print” for the file type. Then click the purple download button, and save the new file to your computer.
4. Print the Art.
Choose the printer. For smaller art sizes less than 8.5 x 11″, a home printer is usually fine. For larger sizes, you can upload it to print as a poster at Staples, Office Depot, Walgreens, CVS, Walmart, or any local print shop.
Choose the paper. You’ll want to print it on heavy matte paper, card stock, or watercolor paper. Regular printer paper won’t hold up to the Mod Podge well and glossy poster paper from a print shop won’t look authentic. (You can even have it printed on canvas at one of the places above.)
How to Make a Paper Print Look Like a Vintage Oil Painting.
1. Trim: After printing the artwork, trim away the excess paper. An exacto knife and a ruler, or a scrapbooking paper cutter both make nice straight cuts.
2. Apply a Base Coat: Paint a thin first layer of Mod Podge over the entire picture.
3. Paint on the brush strokes: Now you get play the artiste! Go in with a smaller brush and start painting on brush strokes of Mod Podge. This adds texture similar to what oil paint leaves behind and is what makes the print look more like the real thing. Add strokes where it looks like the painter would have used heavier paint, and follow the lines or highlights of certain objects. You really can’t mess this up.
4. Let it dry until clear: All of the white of the Mod Podge will disappear after the artwork is completely dry.
Here you can see the texture the Mod Podge left behind:
5. Frame the artwork: Use any kind of frame style you might see an old oil painting in. You can find old frames at flea markets, yard sales, or Facebook Marketplace for really cheap, especially if the art in it is ugly undesirable (you’ll be taking it out anyway).
I already had regular gold picture frames so this craft costs me nothing, but a vintage frame would elevate this craft even more!
If the frame has glass, take the back off and carefully remove it. Then lay the artwork in, replace the back of the frame, and secure it with the tabs or staples it was held in with previously.
SH&H Tip: If using an open frame or one that doesn’t have a back, cut a piece of cardboard or foam core to the opening size and mount the printed artwork to it with a glue stick or double-sided tape.
I created two vintage art prints in different sizes with frames that fit 8×10 and 5×7 photos to lean on my living room shelves. But using this technique could also be an affordable way to make a gallery wall of beautiful art in larger sizes as well!
I like the vintage charm that this easy faux oil painting DIY brought to my fall family room so much, I’m going to start scouting out some replacement vintage prints for Christmas!
(You can see all my moody accents for fall in the post “Fall Decorating Ideas With Moody Colors + My New House Tour“.)
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I have never heard of this before, but I love the idea! Brilliant!