Transforming Old Hotel Art Into A Modern Boudoir Photography Studio Masterpiece

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This is very true with art.

I purchased four of these beauties from a local Las Vegas hotel furniture store. If you do not have a store like this in your area, basically, they sell old furniture, artwork, lamps, etc from hotels and casinos at really low prices. The majority of these items they sell are very rough on the eyes. Odd colors and designs. Seriously, it looks bad. That is why you need to have some creativity and an imagination to make them look great!

I am sure that the artist who painted these does great work, however this painting is simply not my style and will not go with anything in my studio. However, at $5 for a 4 foot by 3 foot canvas painting, it looked beautiful. I saw past the 80's style hotel artwork and visioned my modern Las Vegas boudoir photo studio masterpiece.

This is really not a difficult project to do. Anyone can do it. You just need to see and appreciate the true beauty of something hiding on the inside and not accept it at face value. This painting was screaming to me, "Make me look hot!".

Here is how I made mine.

First, get yourself a canvas - the bigger, the better. Large canvases can get quite expensive, so try to find a cheap one like I did. If you do not have a hotel furniture store, check out some yard sales or thrift stores. Remember, it doesn't matter what it looks like, because you are going to make it look beautiful.

Second, get a damp rag and clean it. My painting was covered in years of dust and cigarette smoke. Extremely disguising. 

Third, cover it. I used only one coat of white acrylic paint. It did not cover the image below completely, and thats ok. This coat is mainly to mask the majority of distracting art below.

Fourth, I applied some acrylic gel medium randomly across the art. I did this because the original art has many raised surfaces. It looked appropriate for what the original artist intended, but would look out of place for what I was planning on creating. It also helps to completely disguise the image below.

Fifth, I decided to make squares for my masterpiece. I didn't want them to be too large or too small so I went with a 3 inch square. I used a tape measure and pen to draw lines every 3 inches horizontally and vertically. If you are wanting to do something similar to what I did, make sure you do the math first and calculate the amount of squares before you start drawing lines all over your canvas.

Sixth, Start painting. I mixed black and white acrylic paint to make fifty shades of gray. Just kidding. However, I did come up with quite a few shades. I mixed in a metallic silver acrylic paint thinking it would look cool, but the paint was somewhat of a let down. It did not mix well with the white or black acrylic paint and the color was not what I expected once I applied it to the canvas. I still used it, just not a lot of it.

Seventh, Allow a day to dry and than hang your artwork on the wall. I know it sounds easy, but this was beyond the most difficult part for me. I put countless nail holes in my studio’s wall because I could not get the art evenly leveled or at the proper height I wanted. 

There you have it. A very fun and inexpensive project to create some beautiful art for your home or studio. Good luck!