Friday, February 26, 2010
Magnetic Art Wall
Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly building an art collection on a modest budget. I’ve purchased prints from Tiny Showcase, been to Baby Tattooville, bought prints online directly from artists like Meg Hunt, and even made some purchases at the Des Moines Arts Festival. The only problem is, I didn’t want to spend a fortune framing everything so it has all sat in a stack in my studio where I can’t appreciate it. I recently decided to create an art wall to display it all and started researching different ways I could hang unframed art on my walls.
I didn’t really want to drill holes in the walls to attach boards, and I didn’t want to use adhesives which would be hard to remove later, so I eventually settled on the idea of a magnetic wall. After some frustration, I’m finally happy with the way it turned out and thought I’d share what I found out in the whole process because there are a lot of people out there who have not been so happy with the Rustoleum Magnetic Primer that I used. I was one of those unhappy people, but made it work for me.
What you’ll need:
- Rustoleum Magnetic Primer
- Leftover wall paint
- Painters Tape
- Paint Tray
- Smooth Foam Rollers
- Sandpaper or Sanding Block (optional)
- Super-awesome Artwork
- Many magnets
Step 1:
Decide how large an area you want to cover. One can is supposed to cover a 16 sq. foot area with 3 coats of paint, but I found that to be inaccurate. One can actually put 7 coats of paint on a 16 sq. foot area, and I ended up using 2 cans and 9 coats of paint to get stronger magnetism.
Step 2:
Have the people at the paint counter mix your primer in the machine. It will save you time and a sore arm.
Step 3:
The primer directions say to tape off the area you want to paint, which I did. You may want to NOT tape of the area because you will be applying many coats of this primer which creates a raised surface on the wall. If you use the tape, it leaves a visible line. If you didn’t, I suspect the line wouldn’t be visible.
Step 4:
Paint the wall with the primer. Fortunately, you can repaint after 30 minutes, but it still takes a long time to get enough layers on it to make a strong enough pull to hold paper on the wall. Use a smooth foam roller to get as smooth a surface as possible. The smoother the surface, the stronger the pull will be.
Step 5:
You can also sand the surface to make it smoother.
Step 6:
Let the final coat dry for at least 4 hours.
Step 7:
Paint over the primer with a color that matches your walls. The directions say not to put more than 2 coats of paint on it, but the primer is nearly black and it took 3 coats of paint to cover it. I don’t think it interfered too much with the magnetic pull.
Step 8:
Once the paint is dry, you can start hanging up the art. If you use magnets on the front of the art, you’ll want to get the strongest you can. Apparently, the strongest are called Rare Earth Magnets and are kind of pricey. I bought some basic magnets at the home improvement store that did the job, but they need to be big and flat. Thick papers will need multiple magnets to hold them up. I also tried using some refrigerator magnets to hold stuff up.
I was pretty frustrated that the thicker papers weren’t staying up so well until I discovered magnetic tape at the store. If you put your artwork in a plastic sleeve and adhere the magnet to the back, the hold is much better.
You can even hang up thick matte board.
Please view the photos on Flickr for artist information.
