How to make a wood slat picture

You will need

• Resene testpots in your choice of colours; Fleur used Resene Pacifica, Resene Woodland, Resene Black, Resene Dark Knight, Resene Lynch and Resene Half Sea Fog
• Photo frame
• Scrap wood
• Saw
• Paint brush
• Wood glue

Instructions

Step 1:  You need an old photo frame with the glass, backing board and metal tabs removed. Cut thin strips of wood to length so that they fit into the back of the frame. Cut enough strips to fill up the whole frame. If you don’t have access to wood, chopsticks or strips of thick cardboard would achieve the same look.

Step 2:  Paint your wood strips and then arrange them into the layout that you are wanting. Fleur wanted to do an abstract landscape, so she started with green and brown (unpainted wood) at the bottom for the land and moved up into blue and white for the sky and clouds. Fleur mixed some of my paints together to make the grey and the pale green colours.

Step 3:  Using wood glue, run a bead of glue around the back edge of the frame.

Step 4:  Insert the wood strips into the frame and use a weight, such as a few heavy books, to hold the strips in place while the glue dries.

Top tip: Swap the Resene testpots of paint for Resene Colorwood wood stain testpots, which will enhance and colour the timber grain, and finish with Resene Aquaclear.

Styling and images by Fleur Thorpe, 2017.