Inspiration is all around us. Creating a work of art inspired by pricier designer prints is easy and a fun and creates a personal work of art.
Supplies Needed:
Two Canvases
Permanent Marker
Printed Birds to trace
Scissors
Paint, Wallpaper or Vintage pages to create a canvases back ground
Glue or Mod Podge
It’s easy to find images of birds online by doing an image search. Print your images on card stock or mount them on card stock to create a firm template. Cut them out and your ready to go!
To create some fun texture and interest cover your canvas in Scrapbook paper, Paint or Vintage book pages! To adhere any sort of paper mix two parts water to one part school glue or Mod Podge. Paint your paper with your glue mixture and lay smoothly on your canvas. Once the entire canvas is covered let it dry over night before moving onto the next step.
When it’s dried completely lay your two canvases next to each other.
Use a pencil to free hand your tree branches. Be sure to continue your branch from one canvas to the next.
Outline your penciled sketch with your permanent marker.
Color in your branches completely.
Place your bird images on the branches and trace them with a pencil. Remember you can make a bird face the other way by flipping them over!
Color in your birds.
Now we’ll add our details! Draw on leaves and smaller branches and color them in. Lastly you’ll want to color it all in one last time to insure a deep dark silhouette and to cover up any uneven marker strokes.
Hang them side by side and enjoy!
Here si my appearance on Studio 5 demonstrating this project!
I may have to steal this idea for myself. I love the way you used book pages as the background! How big were the canvases you used?
Thsoe look great! I love your blog! La
Oh my gosh!! A project I can actually do! I like this idea very much.
Very cute. I thought the birds and tree were vinyl, what a fun surprise to see how easy this really is!
really cool!
I love the book pages as a background. Such a pretty, simple ideay!
pure genius!!! i have been following your blog for a while now. i love all your fantastic ideas!!! …and i'm totally stealing this one!!
I am TOTALLY going to make this! I lurve it!
Thank you so much for sharing it!
that is such a good idea, and the possibilities are endless. thanks for sharing
Wow! How beautiful and creative!
You did great yesterday!!! I love this idea!
How great! I would never have guessed you just used marker for the branches/birds! Love it.
Well done, Becca. I will be bookmarking this for our new home, when we find it!
You are so creative! I love it. Thank you for sharing with us, might have to try it
Take care
Kristin
You have a lovely blog. I've enjoyed visiting this morning.
Sherry @ A Happy Valentine
What a wonderful project. I love birds and things to glue. Perfect for me!
Brenda
LOVE this idea! I might need to make my own… very inspiring!
This is fabulous! Thanks for sharing this. . . I really might actually try to do this project! :]
So fun! I love it! I also love your new blog design! It's looking spify around here!
SUPER CUTE! love your tutorials! keep 'em coming!~
I love it!! I'm stealin' for sure!
So very adorable!
Stunning!! LOVE IT!
Stunning!! LOVE IT!
We saw you! You were great! My daughter had to try this and turned out a great masterpiece. To make it even cheaper we used a painted canvas I had picked up from the thrift store. Great idea!
VERY very cute Becca! I love the birds. What a great idea!
XOXO
Jen
That is really cute! Great job!
WOW!! I LOVE IT! I too am going to steal this!!!
this is so so neat…i love birds:)
Ooh that is pretty! And it looks great with your blue wall. Thanks so much, I'll be linking.
Very Very cool….just our -wildlife biologists- style! And so simple to do. Glad to have found your site.
-Carrie
How funny, I was going to make a similar project soon with my little art class students
Love your blog, thanks for sharing so many great ideas!
I absolutely love this! I have a pretty shower curtain with leaves on it and have been looking for some art to coordinate. I just want to go to the craft store now to get some canvases! Thanks so much for the great tutorial.
Thank you for sharing it.You are wonderful.I love this blog.I will follow your blog.Take care.Ozlem
What a fabulous art project. I loved the interview/tutorial. Great stuff. And I just happen to have an old Vintage Almanac that would be perfect for this project. Also I think a great place to get birds would also be from old used greeting cards. I keep al of mine for art projects. Thanks for sharing!
thanks for posting this tutorial. i loved it so much, i made one for my dining room! see it here: http://leahbellesworld.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-first-real-project-with-cricut.html
Thanks for sharing your great ideas. I had such fun making my own; my kids were amazed. And I love it just above the piano. I ended up using 2 square canvases and music sheets in place of the dictionary pages. Fun, fun, fun!
what a fabulous fabulous project…i m inspired..and will try it.thank you for sharing…
Becca,
Another GREAT super easy and cheap idea that has endless possibilities!! It is just the idea I needed to get the art from one of my many undecorated rooms that I had a idea of what I wanted and could never find it. I love it!!
I've put together a round up of wall art projects on Craft Gossip today and included your project.
You can see it here
http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/9-wall-art-projects/
Those are adorable! Thanks for sharing!
Adorable
I am so excited to start doing this!!!!! Beautiful!!!
I loved your idea and used it to make a one of a kind wedding gift for a friend. The theme of her wedding was Pride and Prejudice with lots of butterflies (on invites and table decor)…I found an old copy of Pride and Prejudice at the used books store and used butterflies instead of birds on the canvases. I also wrote the date of their wedding in the bottom corner. It turned out beautifully and made me look way more artistically gifted than I really am!
So simple yet so beautiful! I’m on a bird kick right now. . . these look GREAT!
It breaks my heart that this is done to books. Perhaps that charming “Dictionary for Boys and Girls” was already missing pages. I can’t imagine taking apart a beautiful object like a book to make another, lesser, object. I really hope the copy of “Pride and Prejudice” the other poster used was an old paperback with missing pages!
I just found you today and this post is the moment I fell in love! Honestly, I LOVELOVELOVE these!! This has gone to the top of my to do list!! Thanks for the tutorial.
You are too sweet! I hope you enjoy much more here!
LOVED LOVED LOVED the idea!! And was so inspired that I made my own
Thanks for sharing it with your readers. Here is a link to mine – http://simzcorner.blogspot.com/2011/05/my-100th-post-bird-wall-art-tutorial.html. I gave you due credit and linked it back to your post too 
love love love your blog, and designs are simply superb.
Thanks for sharing such beautiful ideas to us
I loved this sooo much that as soon as I saw it I started one. But instead of book paper, I did sheet music from some of my favorite songs. It turned out really cute. Thanks for the idea!
Hi! This is not only beautiful — it’s genius! I love it! Just found you and am your newest follower through MBC. Hope we can stay connected.
-Nicole
BetweenBabies.com
I have been searching for something for above my mantel and this is what has stolen the show. Thanks for the great DIY’s!!!!
Wow, this is amazing!!! I would so love to have this in my house! Thanks so much for sharing this awesome tutorial, just love it!
Hey Becca! I wanted to let you know that I featured your book page wall art on my blog today. I absolutely love how this turned out.
hi i just came across this page today and loved the idea! 1 question though, do u seal the whole thing with some material to keep away dust etc? like a coat of varnish or smth?
I love this! I have been trying to think of something with birds to put over my bed and this is perfect! Thanks for the inspiration!
Love your ideas!
love this idea!
It’s great
My name is Becca!!!:)
sorry…i posted this twice:)
My name is Becca too:)
I’m totally doing this! I use newspaper for my deocr crafts.
This is adorable. I have to do this. Oh the imagination you have! Amazing!
I just did this in my new apartment. I used five 16″ 20″ canvas’ that where on sale and news papers that me and a friend cut up. It took about two days but the canvas looked great and then I did a leaves and butterfly pattern. It spans four of the canvas’ and takes us up about 7sq feet. Looks fabulous!