Wall Art 1

For our entry

We live in a split-entry home, so when you enter the front door, you're faced with a big-ish wall above the stairs. When I first started dabbling with woodworking a few years ago, I decided it was time to put something on that wall.

I need a fairly large piece to have the effect I wanted, so it ended up at about 21" wide and 57" tall. The concept is pretty simple: use simple pieces of wood in rows to fill up the space within a frame. There were several challenges to work through during the process, however.

Fit

Not all of the pieces of wood are the same height (the height of the row), so I either had to rip pieces to equal height, or select pieces of equal height. That sounds simple enough (though tedious), except the composition (choosing which pieces to put where) had to happen simultaneously. Sometimes I couldn't tell if a piece was what I wanted until I cut it to fit, but once a piece was cut to fit, it then had limited options for using elsewhere if it turned out to be the wrong selection at the time.

Composition

I mentioned this already, but from the beginning, I considered this to be an exercise in composition. With distinctive elements of size, color, and texture, I wanted to find balance but not monotony. I wanted each piece to feel as though it played an important role, but for no piece to feel like it could stand alone.

Labor

Pieces like this can be deceptive because of their simple appearance. Between rips on the table saw and chops on the miter saw, there's easily 300-400 cuts for this piece. Once every piece had been selected, composed, cut, and dry fit, then it was time to disassemble it and meticulously glue it up for the final time!

I'm quite happy with how it turned out, especially for being my first piece of wall art.