This collage by SideLong is an example of poster art you can make at home
Making and decorating your own poster art is not difficult, and you can design posters in any style or color theme to suit your needs. Whether you are decorating a poster for an upcoming science fair, making an artistic poster to advertise your yard sale or designing poster art to decorate your living room, you don't need to be an artist or a graphic designer to decorate your own poster art.
Instructions
Choose Your Purpose and Theme
1. Choose your purpose. Figure out why you want to decorate poster art. If you are redecorating your bedroom, you'll want to make an artistic poster with high aesthetic value. If you are making a poster to advertise your yard sale, then information is your goal. Decide on the critical information that will be included when you decorate your poster.
2. Choose your theme. Poster art for a boy who loves science will be different that poster art for a girl who loves musicals. Whether you decide to focus on fashion, travel, sports, or anything else, you'll use this theme to search for collage images for your poster.
3. Choose your color scheme. If you are designing poster art to advertise a yard sale, make the important information (date, address, time) in a bright color scheme that is prominent, legible and easily read by someone driving by in a car. If you are decorating a poster to add color to your bedroom, choose colors that match your existing accessories.
Design and Decorate Your Poster Art
4. Choose assorted images through old magazines that you will use to decorate your poster. You might need magazines specific to your theme (for example, a sports magazine to create a baseball-themed poster), but most magazines will have images that will fit your needs. Images should be carefully trimmed from the magazines and placed in a neat pile for the next step.
5. Arrange your images. Create a pleasing visual arrangement with the images cut out from your magazines. At this time, you might want to incorporate the scrapbooking paper to serve as backgrounds or to cut related shapes to add to the poster.
6. Design your poster text. If you are adding words to your poster, use the white copy paper and the black Sharpie to draw two-dimensional forms of the words. This means instead of drawing the word with just lines, create the outline of each letter. Use the white paper as is glued on top of the collage from the previous steps or use the white letters as a template to cut the words out of the scrapbooking paper. You can also use the colored markers to color the letters of each word, but consider this: having multiple colored letters within a word makes the word difficult to read. Don't have the letters "Y," "A," "R" and "D" all different colors; instead, stick with one color throughout each word.
Assemble & Hang Your Poster Art
7. Use the paintbrush and white glue to assemble your poster art, now that you have arranged your images and text in a pleasing manner. Brush a thin layer of the glue onto the back of each collage item. Add glue in thin layers to add additional layers of paper.
8. Brush a thin layer of glue directly onto the poster board, if you will be covering the area entirely with paper. When you have assembled the poster completely, allow to dry for at least one hour. After one hour, brush a thin layer of glue over the entire poster for added strength. This step is optional, but if you are decorating poster art that will be exposed to the elements, the glue will add extra protection. Note, however, that you will want to use very thin layers of glue when assembling and finishing because a layer that is too thick may result in a wrinkled poster.
9. Hang your artwork. A staple gun and a telephone pole are all you need if you are hanging your poster outside, but if you are hanging inside, use double-sided tape or poster tack to avoid making holes in your walls. Frame your poster, if you so desire. Enjoy your new poster art.
