Sheep to Sunshine!!

Today's question is: "Can you up-cycle an ugly canvas?"

Why YES YOU CAN!

I got a picture strictly for the frame...I wanted to use it for a chalkboard. But when I took the frame off, I noticed the picture was a "real" painting on canvas, and I decided to hang on to it until I found the perfect project...and I did!

This is what I started out with...

The painting was mostly smooth, except for the sheep, which had been painted with big chunky swirls and things to resemble fleece, creating a very rough surface. I painted over the whole thing with Behr Ultra paint--yes, regular old latex paint--but the rough spaces stood out too much.

I thought to myself, "I wonder if you can use paint stripper on canvas?"

Guess what....you can!

After I sheared those poor sheep, I repainted the canvas with my latex paint.

Then, using this is my inspiration, I designed the lettering on my Silhouette and cut everything out of vinyl. It was a painstaking process to get the vinyl on the canvas in a reasonably level manner! The vinyl wasn't going to stay on the canvas, but be used as kind of a "reverse stencil." That means I paint over the vinyl and all, and then carefully lift the vinyl off while the paint is still wet.

I laid awake for hours (no, I'm not kidding) wondering what kind of paint I should use for the yellow coat. I worried about how quickly spray paint can dry...sometimes that leads to the paint tearing off around the vinyl when you remove it. If I hadn't been stuck at home with sick kids, I might have bought a sample pot of latex paint to use. But I was, so I didn't! Brushing on paint has it's own hazards--it tends to bleed underneath the vinyl.

So I chose my poison: Rustoleum Summer Squash spray paint.

Here's what it looked liked when I was in the process of taking of the letters!


I was in luck...the spray paint seemed to dry more slowly on canvas. I only had the tiniest bit of tearing on the very last letters, and it isn't noticeable. Two people pulling off the letters at once would have worked perfectly!

Here's the finished product!

I love, love, love it! I painted on the little red heart with acrylic paint, and I washed the whole canvas with diluted white acrylic paint--so this one canvas has three kinds of paint on it! Probably four, if you count what's underneath!

It is HUGE: 30" x 40". Right now it's sitting on my buffet in front of my chalkboard. It doesn't get to stay there, but I love looking at it for the moment!

Be sure to stop by this post and leave a comment to be entered in my giveaway! Ends May 2.