Independence Day is coming up and inspired by the new Maya Road Star tins, I thought a patriotic project might be a fun one to work up for my American friends. I hope you enjoy it!
Mini Canvas Frames have to be one of my all-time favorite products in the Ellen Hutson LLC store. They are 4"x4" in size and are the perfect size for making fun altered canvas projects and just right for experimenting on. A great feature of these canvases are they are triple primed meaning you can get right to the fun stuff. As well they come two in a pack, are super high quality and as the canvas wraps right around to the back, you don't even need a frame for them. Unless you want one of course.
Today's tutorial has lots of photos to take you through all the steps. A picture is worth a thousand words, right?...so I've taken a few to make it easy to follow. The first step is to paint one of the canvases with blue Studio Acrylic Paint.
While that is drying, you can stamp a nice collage of images onto the other canvas. It's already triple primed as I mentioned earlier so you can just stamp away. I like using the Ranger Archival Inks for stamping on canvas and then heat set the ink for permanence.
Creating stripes is easy to do when you mask off an area. Tissue Tape makes a beautiful accent but it also works perfectly to mask with. Apply the tissue tape on the areas you want to remain white and paint the rest in red.
After the paint has dried, you can remove the masking tape and your canvas should look like the above photo.
While that continues to dry, it's back to the blue canvas. Once it's surface is dry you can stamp on it with paint applied to a background stamp. I love doing this with an Adirondack Paint Dabber as it makes it super easy to cover the area. Stamp canvas and set aside to dry.
Once both canvases are dry you can add a lovely crackle finish if you like the vintage look. Apply Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint over each of the canvas and give it an hour or so to dry.
The Distress Crackle layer will add a beautiful vintage distressed look. To highlight it, sponge the surfaces with some Distress Ink. If you'd like to check out the detail, just click on the above photo to enlarge it.
Finally we get to the Maya Road Star Bottle Cap that inspired the project. Most paints flake off metal so I've painted the inside of the bottle cap with Gesso. I've filled the inside of the star with a knotted length of burlap tirm and added some other sweet embellishments.
Here's a detail of what the star canvas looks like finished.
To complete the striped canvas, I've painted some chipboard letters with the matching blue Studio paint and adhered them to the canvas.
You can display these canvases horizontally as in the first photograph but after completing the project, discovered that it looks great arranged vertically as well.
Hope you've been inspired to create some patriotic art for your home this summer.
Thanks for stopping by the CLASSroom and have a wonderful weekend!
Supplies: White 4"x4" Canvas Frames, Studio Gesso by Ranger, Snow Cap Adirondack Paint Dabber, Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint, Dash of Red Studio Paint and Smidge of Blue Studio Paint by Ranger, Studio Artist Brushes, Jet Black Archival Ink, Vermillion Archival Ink and Brushed Corduroy Distress Ink by Ranger, Cling Music Background, Large Newspaper Background DesignBlock, Basic Grey Carte Postale by Hero Arts, Patti Mini Alphabet Chipboard Set by Maya Road, Star Bottle Cap, Vintage Paper Roses, Linen Burlap Trim and Ticket Transparencies by Maya Road, Heart Trinket Pins, Crystal Star Trinket Pins, Kraft Flag Trinket Pins and Wood Bingo Motifs by Maya Road, Love Banner Clear Stamp Sheet by Maya Road
