DIY Rustic Wood Frame for Canvas Paintings

Sorry y’all, this tutorial is a short break from acrylic painting! Instead, I wanted to share a simple way to finish all of your beautiful pieces of artwork painted on canvas. I am bringing a special guest to my video tutorial too! My husband Corey is going to show you how to make DIY rustic wood frames for canvas paintings!

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In my blog all about creating a painting series, I showed off one of my favorite trio’s, my Farm Animal paintings, all lined up in my dining room. These colorful paintings are framed out by reclaimed wood that our friend gave us. If you don’t have reclaimed wood, you can use regular 1×4’s from the hardware store.

To build the rustic wood frame, we are basically boxing in the canvas with the worn wood planks. The corners are not mitered for a more rustic look and to keep things simple. We have learned through building frames that it is best to make each frame around the canvas you want in it. Using this method to create DIY rustic wood frames for canvas paintings is so easy!

For all of us who don’t use power tools on the regular (?), Corey was kind enough to do a full walk-through on just how he easily builds these frames. You can watch the full video tutorial below to get a clear picture of all the steps.

Start Laying The Framework

First, cut two boards to be the length of your canvas. Then, set them against the canvas in the position they would be in the completed frame. Position the two other boards in their places. Line them up to mark and cut these the total width.

Keep in mind wood is organic and won’t be perfectly straight. Using a square like this to mark your cut lines will help to ensure everything will line up.

You will have two 1×4″ boards cut to the canvas’s width, and two cut to the total width of the canvas plus the first two boards.

To join all these boards together, we use a Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig. If you aren’t familiar with a Kreg Jig, it is an impressive system that creates pocket holes into your wood to create clean seams. You use their screws inside the pocket holes. The finished project has a clean look with no fasteners above the surface of the wood!

You can see Cory using the Kreg Pocket-Hole Jig in the full video tutorial to see how it works! Once you set the depth of the wood you are using with the Kreg system, you can see that it’s smooth sailing. Kreg will even let you know which size of their screws to use!

Create Pocket Holes & Screw Together

Create two pocket holes on each end of your two canvas length boards. To assemble lay your boards back out around the canvas face down and use the suggested screws to fasten. Clamping the corner you are working on to your work surface will help keep things from slipping around.

Attach Supports

Once the front four boards are together, we add support to the back, allowing the canvas also to set recessed into the frame. In the tutorial, we are building our frame for an 18″ canvas, which means we use two 18 5/8″ 1x2s and two 17 7/8″ 1x2s. Adjust your cut lengths to the size of your canvas.

The beauty of this style of frame is that you don’t have to be perfect! On the backside of the reclaimed wood frame, use the 1x2s to box in the canvas tacking in with brad nails.

To hold the painting in place and prevent it from sliding too far back through the frame, you can attach supports to the back of each corner. We had 5ml thin scrap wood that we cut about 3′ triangles out of, but you could use simple brackets too.

Watch the Full DIY Rustic Wood Frame for Canvas Paintings Video Tutorial

This way of building frames for canvases can be replicated with other board widths. Using 1×4’s gives enough space to create two pocket-holes, making a very secure joint, but I think you have some space to go narrower too.

Attach your wall hook and display your hard work! I would love to see all the different frame styles everyone creates.

Please share your DIY rustic wood frames for canvas paintings on my FB page. If you haven’t already, like and follow so that you can join our amazing community of artistic minds.

Stay creative,