Styrofoam offers an inexpensive building material for wall art projects.
Decorative wall art doesn't have to be expensive or made from expensive materials; one visit to crafters' websites on the Internet yields beautiful pieces of art made from simple materials like Styrofoam. The pieces of art range from traditional wall paintings to something decidedly more modern. Additionally, you can make many of the wall art projects with supplies found in places as unlikely as the top drawer of your bedroom dresser.
Wall Sculptures
The flexibility of Styrofoam represents one of the real advantages of Styrofoam as an art medium. Because of the material's softness, it can be cut easily and made into sculpture, including the flat sculpture technique of bas relief. This technique is common among sculptors who create sculpture art for the wall. A common example of this type of sculpture is seen on coins, but it's prevalent all over the world and made from all sorts of materials. To create a Styrofoam wall art sculpture, first sketch out your ideas on paper and then enlarge them before you transfer them to the Styrofoam. Transfer the sketch by laying the pattern over the Styrofoam and cutting it out. Leave the sculpture as is or add color to it with paint, glued-on stones made of paste or from sequins. Glue a picture hanger on the back of the sculpture to hang it up.
Traditional Paintings
As in the case of the wall sculpture, Styrofoam's flexibility as well as its cost make it a viable option for painting in the traditional sense. For example, if you're doing a portrait of someone, and you want the background to have a torn or jagged quality, it's simple enough to break off or cut off the edges of the Styrofoam before you begin painting your work. Styrofoam has an interesting quality in that it's very porous. Paintings done on foam should be done with paint that will not melt the foam, or put a protective coating like Plaster of Paris or Mod Podge on the Styrofoam before you paint it. Afterward you can paint it as you would any other painting, using any style. Glue a picture hanger to the back.
Fabric
Many people decorating their walls today use fabric. This includes not only covering the walls with large swathes of fabric --- as in the case of a curtain that covers the entire wall --- but also in the form of hung tapestries or quilts. Fabric on Styrofoam is a natural extension of this trend, allowing you to not only match the fabric on your throw pillows or couch, but also to get a bit more creative. For example, some T-shirt designs today employ the skills of the best artists around. These types of fabrics make excellent coverings for Styrofoam art. The simplest pieces of Styrofoam art featuring fabric take advantage of the square-cut Styrofoam. Fabrics are wrapped around the foam and arranged on the walls in a geometric pattern.
Photos
Photos constitute a common addition to a home's wall galleries. Styrofoam as a frame brings a new twist on this. The Styrofoam photo craft can be executed a number of ways: Glue photos directly onto the foam without any adornment for a frameless look, or enhance the arrangement by pasting the photo right in the middle of the Styrofoam and then decorating the frame with shells, rocks or bits of paper.
