Panels on the wall, their types and placement, preparation of the basis of the composition, the technique of its manufacture from various materials. A panel is a wall piece of art that decorates the interior of a room and gives it a special sophistication. Such an element of decor can not only be bought ready-made, but also made by hand. This is an exciting activity for family members of all ages, requiring imagination and creativity.
The main types of panels on the wall
Wall panels can vary in many ways:
- Anything can serve as a material: plastic and fabric, wood and cardboard, paper, wire and fur, postcards and photographs, buttons and yarn, shards of mirrors and mosaics, branches, dry leaves, and more.
- Technique using knitting, embossing, embroidery, wood carving, gluing and inlaying. In this case, the decorative element can be an interweaving of lines and geometric shapes, an abstract image, or have a certain plot.
- A shape that can be of any size and geometry. Decorative wall panels are made in the form of ovals, polygons, curved shapes and often consist of several separate elements. Depending on the size, the paintings can serve as the main accent of the interior or its decoration.
- The 3D effect, which is a new trend of the times in creating such compositions. It is difficult to make such a panel, but it is quite possible. In this case, the three-dimensional effect is achieved with the help of volumetric paper applications, various projections, etc. The applications can imitate bas-relief, high-relief and unique carvings. "Soft" volumetric panels with a pattern created with the help of small wallpaper nails, equipped with decorative hats, look beautiful.
- Lighting, which makes the panel not only an element of decor, but also gives it practical properties. LED lighting allows, for example, to use the panel as a night light. The lighting level can be adjusted by the number of LED elements.
Before you make a panel on the wall with your own hands, you should think about its location. The color scheme, size and shape of the future canvas depend on this. The distance from the floor surface to the panel is usually 170 cm.
If you plan to make a mirror panel, it should be installed so that artificial or natural light falls on the surface of the painting. At the same time, the reflected and diffused light will create visual harmony in the room.
Wall panels made of cardboard, cork and other scrap materials look great in free space. Therefore, it is not recommended to place such decor near other interior items, for example, shelves, photographs and paintings.
Preparatory work before making a wall panel
There are many options for making decorative panels on the walls of any room. Photos of finished products can be found in catalogs or develop your own project. To begin with, you can try to apply the planned panel drawing on a sheet of paper. With such a sketch, it will be easier to determine the future dimensions of the painting and the materials needed to create it.
If fabric is used as a decor, you can take a piece of plastic, a board, or any material that has a hard surface as a base. You need to pull the fabric onto the base, and fix its allowances from the back of the workpiece. The finished craft is installed in the frame, and then on the wall.
The fabric can also be pulled directly onto the frame, and the surface can be decorated with glued pieces of cork, coins or decorative paper elements.
The panel can be made without a frame. This will require a piece of drywall or plywood. The front part of the workpiece must be pasted over with foam rubber or padding polyester, and then the resulting "pillow" should be covered with a cloth. After that, the product can be decorated.
How to make a panel on the wall with your own hands
Below we will look at the process of making the most popular panels from various materials.
Wall panel made of colored buttons
In every house there is probably a jar or box, into which buttons of different colors have been folded for several years: small and large, with holes or bows. If there are too many of them, a panel of such elements can easily decorate a wall familiar to the eye.
To make it, you will need a base, which can be a board, cardboard or fabric stretched over a frame, glue, carbon paper, buttons, a pencil, a selected drawing or your own imagination.
An original solution may be to create a panel "money tree" on the wall with your own hands: it is believed that it should bring prosperity to the house. Of course, it is better to make it from coins, but they are never green. Therefore, colored buttons for such a panel will be quite appropriate, especially since no one forbids composing them in one drawing with coins.
You can make such a panel like this:
- A drawing of a tree with a powerful trunk and a lush crown should be applied to the base.
- Choose buttons in brown and green colors of various sizes and shades.
- The necessary places of the base are required to be coated with glue and one by one to stick the buttons on them. Pasting should start from the tree trunk, as it will be partially hidden under the crown. Buttons imitating leaves must be glued by placing them on the trunk - the green "foliage" should hang down.
In the autumn version of the "money tree", you can use additional red and yellow buttons. In this case, their arrangement with coins will be appropriate: their silvery color can create the background of the fallen frost, and yellow can decorate the crown.
Panel on the wall made of dough
Salted dough is a suitable material for making panels. It kneads well and lends itself to sculpting. Unlike plasticine, the dough can be dried to a firm and durable state. And if after that the stucco molding is varnished, it can be stored for centuries.
To make a salty dough, you need two glasses of flour, a glass of fine salt, 125 ml of water and a tablespoon of dry wallpaper glue or skin care cream. Instead of the last two components, unrefined vegetable oil is often used.
High-quality dough should be elastic and dense, knead well and not stick to your hands. Its viscosity is controlled by the addition of flour and its stickiness is controlled by oil. You can add color to the dough using food coloring and flavor with turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, and other spices.
The panel is made in the following order:
- From the prepared dough, a picture should be made or separate fragments should be made for it in the form of figures, which can then be assembled into a single composition. Its theme and detailing depend only on the imagination of the performer and his artistic taste.
- After completing the sculpting, the panel must be sent to dry for an hour in the oven, the temperature of which should not exceed 80 degrees. Instead of an oven, you can use the heat of heating radiators, but in this case, the process will drag on for five days or more.
- The dried panel can be painted with watercolors, gouache or acrylic enamel. An additional layer of varnish applied to the surface of the painting will make it durable.
Wall panel made of nails and threads
Using regular thread and nails allows you to create truly amazing wall art. For work, you will need a board that will serve as the basis for the composition, many small nails, scissors and a hammer, scotch tape, multi-colored threads and a stencil of a drawing that can be printed by finding it on the Internet.
The production of a panel from nails and threads is carried out in the following sequence:
- First of all, you should cut out the stencil and fix it motionlessly on the board with tape.
- Then, along the contour of the drawing and its parts, you need to stuff carnations, duplicating them with the location of the stencil part. In this case, the meaning of the drawing should be clear even if the stencil is completely removed from the board after printing. A detailed drawing of it with nails will help not to get confused in the future when highlighting fragments of the picture by covering it with threads of a certain color.
- After driving in the last nail, the stencil can be removed and the yarn can be started. To do this, the end of the thread must be fastened to one of the studs and the yarn must be wound in a specific area: for example, on a flower petal. The specific order in this work is not important. The main thing is to observe uniform winding of threads everywhere.
- Similarly, you should "paint over" with yarn each separate fragment of the pattern.
Tile wall panel
Wall decor can be made from fragments of any tile: tiles, mosaics, mirror products and others. To work on the panel, you will need: a base for sticking the material, pieces of different tiles, glue and decorative additional elements - corks, pebbles, beads, etc.
Further actions are performed in this order:
- It is necessary to pick up whole tiles of different types and additional decor. The tiles can be cut into the desired fragments with a grinder or tile cutter.
- The surface of the base of the future panel should be cleaned. This can be plywood, board, or a piece of drywall.
- After cleaning or washing, the base surface should dry.
- Using transparent glue, fix the main fragments of the panel on the basis. For the main coating layer, you need to use neutral shades of the tile to highlight the sophistication of the rest of the tile panel fragments.
- Making a preliminary sketch can simplify the work. To do this, you need to lay out all the decorative elements and mark them. After that, it will be possible to understand where and in what order each piece of tile should be glued.
- The composition can be further diversified with small details: shells, beads, pebbles, which can be found at home or bought.
- After laying the tiles, grout the joints. The space between the elements of the panel must be filled with a special mastic using a rubber spatula. After that, the excess mastic must be carefully removed with a damp sponge and the panel must be allowed to dry.
Wall photopanel
You can get a unique author's decor on the wall using photos from your personal archive. When choosing them, it is necessary to remember that the photopanel should evoke only positive emotions. Therefore, it is not recommended to use a photo depicting deceased people or lost pets, which in the future will cause a constant feeling of depression. Much more appropriate in the panel will look materials from places of rest, where we managed to visit, or pictures with a beautiful landscape.
It is not difficult to make panels from photographs. To do this, you need to buy a large glazed frame and fill it with memorable fragments from life. However, creating a unique photopanel with an openwork pattern will be even better. For this, a special quilling technique is used (from the word quill "bird feather" in English), which does not require special expenses.
To work according to this technique, you will need: cardboard, scissors, five wooden slats, a can of white paint, PVA glue and four photo frames.
Using wooden slats, you need to make a frame, and then stick frames on it. After that, a pattern should be laid out between the frames, consisting of strips of paper, twisted using the quilling technique. After finishing the design of the panel, its supporting structure should be painted from a spray can.
Mirror panel on the wall
To make a mirror panel, you need to go through several stages of work:
- Create a sketch with the desired dimensions.
- Cut out the elements of the future panel from the mirror sheet and number them.
- The edges of the parts should be processed and laid in the correct order on the plywood sheet.
- When creating a composition from fragments, its details should be glued on "liquid" nails.
- The mirror panel can be decorated with small mosaics, laid in the form of a rectangle or rhombus.
When installing the panel, you should follow some rules:
- The surface for mounting a mirror composition on it must be perfectly smooth, otherwise the images may be distorted.
- The side edges of the picture should not coincide with the lines of the outer corners - a baguette or border should be provided.
- Panel boundary lines can be any: straight, oblique, vertical, horizontal and round.
Wall panel made of bamboo
To make a bamboo panel, you just need to stick the plant on the wall in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction. In this way, you can decorate the head of the bed, allocate space for household appliances or lay out a winter garden in the living room. In addition, bamboo trunks are often used to divide rooms, forming decorative columns, bar counters or partitions.
When making a bamboo panel in a wall niche, a number of requirements must be observed:
- The composition should not be placed near heating appliances.
- A certain humidity must be maintained in the room.
- To ventilate the plant from the inside, a small two-millimeter hole must be made in each vertebra of its trunk.
- Bamboo needs to be varnished in several layers.
Wall panel made of stone
To make a panel on the wall with your own hands, you can use natural stone. It can be granite or marble, although this mineral is fragile. Elements for a panel are usually cut according to a template. They are glued to a prepared polymer base or installed directly on the wall. Stone mosaic looks great.
Ceramic granite is suitable for the wall panel. The composition is made using small tiles with a smooth surface and a side size of 1–2 cm. Rough tiles are usually used for floor panels.
Wall panel from newspapers
Such a panel looks quite creative, especially since everyone can find the material for its production. For work, you will need newspapers or magazines, paint, scissors, glue and a stationery knife.
Further instructions are as follows:
- Newspapers need to be cut into sheets.
- The resulting paper blanks should be twisted into tubes, fastening each of them with glue.
- The tubes must be painted in different colors.
- Alternating the multi-colored elements of the future panel, they need to be laid round.
- There should be a lot of circles of different sizes.
- Then it is worth stitching the sturdy twine made circles together.
- The finished panel can be used to decorate the walls.
In this way, you can make very different panels that look unusual, and it is almost impossible to guess that they are made from an ordinary newspaper.
Watch the video about the wall panel:
We hope you figured out how to make a panel on the wall. Such work gives unthinkable scope for creativity. You can create any author's decor and decorate the room with your masterpiece. For many, this activity has become not only a pleasure, but also a constant hobby. Good luck!
