DIY West Elm Abstract Painting/ Franz Kline Knock-off

I've been living in my new home for 8 months now and I'll admit that decorating my interior has been slow going. I think I spent the first 6 months slowly unpacking all of our boxes, and now that I can actually see the floors in most of our rooms it's finally time to address our naked walls.

A few months ago I fell in love with these abstract paintings inspired by Franz Kline from West Elm and when I saw HGTV's Emily Henderson style them in a gallery wall I fell even harder, but at that moment I was feeling strapped on cash. Unfortunately, by the time my funds replenished, all but one of the paintings were sold out : ( 

paintings from westelm.com

stylebyemilyhenderson.com

After doing some Google searching I found several DIY West Elm/ Franz Kline interpretations from The Hunted Interior, Amanda Carol Interiors, The Pink Chalkboard, Burlap and Lace, Some Like a Project, and Bliss at Home to name a few. I already had all of the materials needed on hand, so I decided to make my own.

To make my West Elm/ Franz Kline knock-off I used a 16x20 canvas, some white gesso, black and white acrylic paint and 2 large, flat artist paintbrushes. My canvas was originally primed in brown, so first I covered my canvas in 2-3 coats of gesso to cover the brown and waited for it to dry. Next, I made several gestural brush strokes in black. After the black paint had dried, I made several gestural brush strokes in white and went over any black lines that I didn't want to keep. I repeated these last 2 steps until I was happy with my canvas.

Ta da!

My finished piece now resides on my TV gallery wall.