If you’re looking for a fun and easy painting project, try this Doily Canvas Art to create a unique painting in a single afternoon.
Choose a doily that has pretty solid pieces with fewer openings. If the doily has a lot of tiny strings all over then it won’t do a good job of creating a distinct pattern since the spray paint will be able to go around the tiny details.
I chose to create this piece with black and blue. Any dramatic contrast will be eye-catching. Try to pick colors with high contrast in intensity. This will make the pattern that you paint jump out even more.
Supplies
- Canvas
- Doily
- Acrylic paint
- Paint Brush
- Spray paint (in a darker color)
- Clamp (not pictured)
Prepare your work area with newspaper to keep from making a mess.
Use the paint brush to apply the acrylic paint in long strokes. I painted this canvas to look like the color was moving out from one corner. This gives a little movement to the art.
Make sure to paint the canvas edges so your piece has a finished quality.
Allow this to dry about 10 minutes.
Arrange the doily onto the canvas and fold around the fabric pieces until you’re happy with the pattern placement. Use a clamp to attach the doily to the corner of the canvas. 
In a well-ventilated area, apply the spray paint using smooth, even strokes. You don’t want the spray paint to be too thick, but you want to make sure that none of the bottom color shows in the open spaces.
I made sure to spray the paint from a few different directions so that the edges are very distinct and the doily pattern is crisp.
Allow the paint to dry for 10 minutes or until the spray paint is completely dry and no longer wet or tacky.
Remove the doily. Your art is ready to hang!
Other Fun Ideas
- You could use more doilies all over the single canvas if you wanted more of a cluster of patterns. Just make sure that you can clamp the doilies in place. Otherwise, they’ll move around and make it difficult to create a distinct pattern.
- Another idea would be to use painter’s tape in addition to your doilies to create a geometric pattern. You could create stripes or plaid patterns with tape and doilies. Just make sure that you use painter’s tape. Any other type of tape will pull away your bottom layer of paint and remove big chunks of color exposing the blank canvas beneath.
- My favorite idea is to line up several canvases corner to corner. Use a single doily across all the canvases and use weights to hold it in place (since you probably won’t be able to clamp it). Then spray paint as usual. When the doily is removed you can hang the canvases in a cluster arrangement on your wall and they’ll fit together like a perfect puzzle!
