Ginivir’s Canvas With A Letter

Materials

• Canvas panel, linen colour, 30x30cm

• Various acrylic paints, watercolours, transparent gesso, modelling paste, plastic card or spatula, fine-tipped paintbrush, gelato pigments (Faber-Castell)

• Art screen (Heidi Swapp) (This is a mini screen print with an integrated mesh)

• Stencils, clear stamps, die cutting dies (Kési'art)

• Decorative letter (Decopatch)

• Die cuts, crate Paper, labels (Cartoscrap)

• Paper and fabric flowers (Prima, Toga, Crazy Color and Kaisercraft)

• Resin flowers and dots (The Scrap bubble)

• Tacky glue

• Sewing thread

• Photo 6x8cm in black and white with a white border

Instructions

Take the canvas panel and coat it with a layer of transparent gesso, using a plastic spatula or card to give it a smooth finish. I get good results using an old shopping loyalty card!

Get your acrylic paints and choose some colours which will go together well. Dip your fingertips into the paint and spread it onto your canvas with small touches. Create a large area in the bottom left and a smaller area in the top right, using the same combination of colours. Make sure that the larger area is bigger than the decorative letter that you will be using. Rub the paint into your canvas so that you have some areas well covered in paint and others with a more sparse covering, like a ‘drybrush’ effect. Once this layer of paint is dry, apply a second layer of highlights.

Choose a nice delicate stencil and use it to apply a pattern to your canvas by spreading modelling paste onto the stencil with your plastic card or a painting knife. Dry, repeat and dry again.

Place your photo and flowers on the canvas for a moment, (do not glue them on yet!) to give yourself an idea of how to position them and what they will look like. Then take them off and get your art screen.

Position your screen on the canvas, avoiding the areas where you have put modelling paste. Spread it with acrylic paint, using your plastic card or spatula, then remove the screen carefully and wash it immediately. Dry your canvas.

Take some of your lightest coloured acrylic paints and add some touches of colour to the design made with the screen. Putting some colour on one side of this design will give it some volume. Use the same paint to add some more coloured areas to your canvas, employing your finger painting technique again.

Keep checking to make sure that the background and the letter will fit together well. Add some lighter touches of colour if needed so that everything marries up.

Take some watercolour paints in the same combination of colours and add some touches to your painted areas. The translucent quality of the watercolours lets you play with different shades of colour and enhance or lift the colour in certain areas. Finish this step by adding some delicate splashes of paint to the unpainted areas of the canvas by flicking your paintbrush over them. Dry your work again.

Don’t forget to keep checking what the canvas will look like with the letter in place. As you work, you may extend your painted area a bit as you go along.

Next, take a new stencil and some gelato pigments to match your colour scheme. Apply the pigment with some foam, such as a Cut N Dry pad, to add a few new small touches of colour and pattern.

Now you should be ready to get your letter and flowers into their final position and glue them down. The flowers should be stuck underneath the letter, on top of the letter, on the canvas and you can even stick flowers on top of other flowers. You should end up with flowers covering part of the side of the letter.

Use your watercolours to add some light colour to the base of the letter and around the flowers, which will help to emphasise them.

Put some large numbers onto an ink stamp base and use coloured ink to stamp them on the edges of your canvas, then do the same with a stamp of a musical notes. In fact, you could use stamps of letters, words, numbers, musical notes or other ideas Think about playing with your colours when you add the ink.

Choose a small die cutting die in the shape of a word and use a die cutting machine to cut it out of one corner of your photo. Choose a die that works well with your photo, doesn’t cut out anything important from the picture and will allow the word to be clearly seen.

Place your photo on the canvas with an edge underneath the letter. Twist up a length of thread and put it onto a corner of the photo, along with a little resin embellishment. Slip some cut outs made of tracing paper and a label under the photo. Position these elements so that you’re satisfied, then stick everything down using double-sided tape. Be carefully when you stick down the tracing paper, as you will need to make sure that the tape you stick it with is hidden underneath the photo. Write on the little label.

Stick on any other embellishments that you want to add, such as any additional small flowers or some matching adhesive dots.

Finish off by flicking some small splashes of white paint where you want. Make sure you cover the photo while you do this! Before the paint dries, dilute some of the splashes by adding some water to them. Lastly add some final touches of white paint to give a lift to the colours in some areas, including on your main painted area.

Tips

If you don’t have a canvas panel, then use a linen canvas or a piece of grey card. If you do use card, you will need to coat both sides in transparent gesso before you work with it, otherwise it will curl up at the edges or become warped.

No watercolours? If you’ve got children raid their art box for some, otherwise you could use diluted acrylic paints, although you won’t get the same translucent effect.

You can use white paint to extend your range of colours. Be creative with blending colours together; mix orange with pink, blue with green or purple. Start out with stronger colours, then move on to lighter colours and save the white for last.

If you don’t want to use flowers as your theme how about clouds, cogwheels, leaves or buttons? These might be more suitable ideas for a more boyish theme. If you want to create a bit more depth try using thick sticky foam pads instead of normal tape – and if you don’t have any try making some!

You could choose to use a different shape instead of a letter, if you see something else that you like.

If you haven’t got a die that you want to use, look at pre-cut shapes or draw your own and cut it out.

If you can’t get an art screen then you could use a nice big detailed stencil with some coloured modelling paste, or stamp on a pattern and add more colour with paint.

You could even do this project without using a photo, and allow the letter to be the main point of focus.