Even the smallest apartments and houses have a lot of wall space to fill. The art we choose to display on those walls reflects our personalities: the colors we like, the images that move us, and how we want visitors to see us.
While a lot of wall art is simple and designed to highlight other elements of décor, some is wild and wonderful. People who have colorful and creative lives want art that reflects their inner weirdness, whether that means artwork inspired by fantasy or just something that’s a little off the beaten path.
Why is Weird the Way to Go?
One of the hardest things to do when selling digital products is to make what you create stand out from the crowd. After all, there are millions of pieces of wall art, both physical and digital, to buy online. You’ve got to find a way to make yourself the preferred destination for unique wall art.
Weird can mean a lot of different things, but what we’re really getting at is that you want to provide buyers with something they can’t find anywhere else. There are tons of potential images and ideas that will qualify as weird, and using them as inspiration can help you create a niche for yourself.
Here are 6 ideas to help you get weird, wild, and wonderful with wall art.
#1: Use Contrast to Your Advantage
There are plenty of wall art options that deliver what’s expected. For example, it’s easy to find an image of a tranquil forest, a cute stuffed animal, or one of those eternally popular “Live Laugh Love” signs.
The key to using contrast is to put a twist on these things:
- A tranquil forest by a lake, with a reflection of the forest that’s on fire or filled with monsters. (Like the Upside Down in the popular Netflix show, Stranger Things.)
- A stuffed teddy bear with eyes that reveal a haunted interior.
- A sign that says, “Live, Laugh, Leave Me Alone.”
You get the idea! Peruse some online wall art listings and think about how you might use contrast to create something surprising that your buyers will love.
#2: Put a Twist on Popular Paintings
There are a ton of well-known and recognizable paintings in the public domain. Another idea is to take one of them and put a unique or surprising twist on it. Here are a few ideas that would fit into this category.
- A play on one of Degas’ paintings of ballet dancers with flamingos dancing instead of women.
- A “sunny day” image inspired by Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night.” (You could easily use AI to create something like this!)
- An Andy Warhol-style print featuring a whimsical image, such as a unicorn or a goblin.
There are so many different ways you could go with this idea, and all of them could be the ticket to taking your online shop to the next level.
#3: Use Emotions as Inspiration
Human emotions are the inspiration for a lot of wonderful art, and that means you can use them to create your art, too. Almost any feeling can be transformed into something weird and creative if you get expressionistic with it.
Anger can be a fantastic monster with fangs and claws. Sadness could be a drooping flower with eyes that leak teardrops. Happiness could be a line of tap-dancing bunnies. You can let your imagination run wild and produce something that’s unlike any other wall art on the market.
#4: Get Inspired by Interior Décor Trends
Interior décor is highly individual and can be super creative, too. Popular trends may include things like cottage core, art deco, goth, dark academia, steampunk, and much more.
There’s no limit to what you can do once you’re inspired by a décor trend. A cottage core-inspired print might include a grandmotherly cottage hugging her inhabitants. Focusing on steampunk might inspire an image of a dog or cat made out of watch parts and gears. Let your imagination run wild – or give a general prompt to an AI image creator and see what you get.
#5: Get Wild with Nature
Images of natural settings such as flower fields, waterfalls, or forests are popular, but they can also be weird. Why not use a natural setting as a starting point and see what you can create? Here are a few ideas:
- Flowers with eyeballs as centers and ears as petals
- A sunset sky full of fire-breathing dragons
- A forest where the trunks of the trees are wood nymphs
Your designs may be beautiful, scary, surprising, or unsettling. You may also want to play around with images of animals.
#6: Make it Personalized
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ve read about our love for personalization and how it can help you make more sales on Etsy or wherever you sell your digital art. Even the weirdest designs can be personalized if you want them to be.
If you have an idea for featuring a pet, you could give people the option to fill in a form with their pet’s name to make the image personal. That’s just one example. You could also allow people to upload a photo or make specific requests for gifts.
Scale Beyond Wall Art
Now that we’ve given you some ideas about how to get weird with wall art, let’s talk about one of the biggest benefits of creating wall art. Once you have an image, you can put it on just about anything!
Partnering with a print-on-demand provider makes it easy to put your weird designs on an array of products, including t-shirts and other apparel, shower curtains, canvas bags, smartphone cases, and much more. In other words, one product can easily turn into 10 or 20 – and that means even more sales opportunities for you!
It’s Time to Get Weird
Wall art will always be popular, and that means there are always people looking for new, exciting, and, yes, weird designs to bring their homes and offices to life. We hope you’ll let the ideas we’ve shared here inspire you!
Need some help creating weird wall art? Check out Easy AI Weird Wall Art to get a 70-page guide, over-the-shoulder videos, and much more to streamline your weird wall art creation process.
