Here are some project ideas using simple painted wooden cutouts and dowel rods to create three-dimensional artwork for your home. Anyone can make these projects, because they can be made from pre-cut wood, if you’re not up to cutting the shapes out yourself.
The first one starts with an 18″ length of 1″ x 2″ painted the color of your choice. Next, you will need to paint various sizes and lengths of dowel rods, pulling other colors from the color scheme of the space in which the artwork will appear. Lay the wood flat, and secure the dowel rods to it, up and down as shown below, using wood glue then finish nails. You can add a saw-tooth picture frame hanger to the back of the main piece to hang it up once it is finished (you might need more than one for good balance).
Another design utilizes geometric shapes such as a square, triangle, or a circle as shown below. You can find craft wood cut into many different shapes and may want to try a heart, a star, or any other shape that you feel would fit well in the space. Paint it to match the existing decor or in a contrasting color for more effect. Paint various sizes and lengths of dowel rods in different colors and attach them to the cutout as directed above. Attach a hanger and hang up your artwork.
These ideas are to provide inspiration, but you can certainly adapt this idea to your own style. You can use colors that blend with your decor for a more subtle feel, instead of using contrasting or complementary colors. You can also create your own shapes and add or subtract dowel rods, or you can use a larger piece of wood and small pieces of rod placed randomly across the surface. You can also use dowel rods to create a frame around the entire piece. Paint the framing pieces a deeper color to give the piece more contrast.
