How to DIY Ikat Painting Style

Ever attempt painting an ikat pattern?

Call a girl crazy for undertaking an ornate painting project on the rarely seen inside of her closet, but it seemed like a fun place to try something different, and a place where if I totally flubbed up, at least it would be hidden until I got around to repairing the situation. Also, hand-drawn was less expensive than buying a stencil or wallpaper, actually, 100% f-r-e-e because I used leftover paint from my basement stash). What you’re seeing here is a bit of Behr’s Burnished Bronze from when I last painted the stairwell (see a swatch of it on my latest palette post).

I’ve been meaning to paint the insides of the closets for the 2.5 years I’ve been inhabiting this abode; the four closets of my house (three bedrooms, one hallway) are actually the only spaces that never received a fresh coat of paint.

When I started brainstorming ideas for a patterned wall, I didn’t actually even know if I could emulate the soft, exasperated patterns that ikat is appreciated for, but I did think the fact that by-nature, ikat’s totally imperfect, I could probably give it a whirl. Did you know that the technique originated in Central/South America, and the fabrics themselves are similar to tie-dye, in that the dying is a restrictive process where parts of the fabric are blocked from absorbing the treatment? I didn’t, until right here, right now. Thanks Wikipedia, I hope you’re right-on.

I did a trial run, painting patterns with artists brushes on a piece of paper before considering ikat walls a real option:

I initially considered that some of the samples (like those above) felt too clean-lined and Aztec-y, and began playing with drybrushing over the top of the wet paint to roughen up the look. It still wasn’t what I was hoping for, but I ended up liking the diamond pattern that I had been creating.

I took the idea of a pattern a little further once I decided I liked the diamonds (pretty, like this inspiring fabric), and aligned a small series to see how it would flow; looked good. A little sloppy, intentional imperfection.

As much as it seems like a imperfectly hand-drawn ikat paint job would be an easier technique than strapping some blue painter’s tape on the wall and meticulously creating a striped pattern (horizontal stripes seem to be my default, if you’ve ever seen my living room or my recent art project), I still ended up using a whole lot of painter’s tape. Moreso than needing the surrounding walls, trim, and concerning myself with worries of bleeding paint, it helped to have the tape to create straight lines and parameters for each diamond-esque shape. Consider how your handwriting begins to slope when you’re writing on unruled paper; I expected the same thing to happen with my painting, especially if I was constantly turning my head to the right to catch a glimpse of the bedroom TV screen, so having the leveled tape in place helped tremendously. It also helped keep each row evenly separated vertically.

I used the short edge of the latest Coastal Living as the space maker to keep each line evenly divided, and Codeman would not let me get a clean photo of this, so, yet another outrageous, ear-flappin’, howling shot.

I’ve only just started, but I think it’ll move along quickly (by sheer will, so I can go back to having an orderly closet space). As of early this morning, I’m this far along. See how I’m also giving myself parameters for the width of the diamonds? More to come on the overall interpretation.

See the finished ikat painted closet here!