Drill and Plywood DIY Art Board

Drilling all of the holes did take some time, but in the end I was left with a unique decor piece. The beauty of this project, is that you can take any illustration and turn it into a unique art board.

TOOLS

Drill

I used a corded drill, but you could use a battery one if you use a thinner piece of plywood.

Different Sized Drill Bits

I ended up only using 3 sizes of normal drill bits to create the design

MATERIALS AND SUPPLIES

Plywood

You need a sheet of plywood, cut to the size of your printed piece – in my case this is A1 size.

Illustration

I wanted to create a design with a lion, so i searched for ‘Lion Illustration’ on google. Search for illustrations, since you want a simple black and white design to work with.

Printed Piece

You can get really cheap large prints by going down to your local printers and asking for a Blueprint/Plotter/Engineer print – which will cost you about $5 for a huge A1 size black and white print.

Tape

This is used to stick the print onto the plywood

Fine grit sandpaper

Polyurethane

I gave my final piece 2 coats of polyurethane to give it a slight gloss

OPTIONAL

IKEA DIODER LED lights

To give the decor piece an added dimension at night

INSTRUCTIONS

STEP 1: Setting up the board

Once you have the plywood the same size as the illustration, glue the print to the plywood.

STEP 2: Start drilling

Clamp down your board so half of it hangs over the table.

I had three different sized drill bits in total, and started with the biggest drill bit first. I just went for it, and drilled where I thought best. The biggest drill bit was used on the thickest areas of the illustration. Then I moved onto the medium sized drill bit.

I left the most important and defining details (the eyes, mouth and nose) mostly for the smallest drill bit. This way I could get more details to show through.

STEP 3: Touching up

It took a while to drill all of the holes.

I took a paper clip to poke through all of the holes to get rid of any saw dust. Next, I took some fine grit sandpaper to clear of any tear in the plywood.