Baby Name Canvas

I’ve seen these canvases on other artist’s blogs & websites & decided to give one a shot this weekend. My favorites are over @ The Magic Brush. I love how she adds feathers & bling!

Well, I didn’t have any feathers so I just used paint and wrapped the edges with ribbon.

I painted this for my husband’s cousin. In our family, cousins call their elders Auntie & Uncle, and we call them nieces & nephews.  Aisja (Ay-zha) is my newest ‘niece,’ born on February 25. One thing all my family counts on for their birthdays is something painted by me. But I had missed the baby shower, so I really had no idea what the nursery colors were.

I called Aisja’s grandma for a description of the colors in the nursery.  Yellow, green & brown, she told me.

What kind of green, I asked.

You know, Green!

Dark green, light green, forest green, lime green, sage green?

Welll, lighter green.

Hmph. Okay, what about the yellow?

You know – Yellow!

By now I realized I wouldn’t have any idea the shades of the colors and would have to wing it. But I figured it’s a nursery and the colors are most likely pastel.

So, first I printed the name off. Then I centered it on the canvas. In retrospect, I would’ve made it larger. Oh well. I always see a lot of things I’d change in my work.



Then I transferred the name with a stylus & graphite paper. If you don’t have graphite paper, you can always just turn the pattern over and mark it with a pencil. Works fine – it just adds an extra step.



The only issue with graphite paper is sometimes the transfer markings are a little too dark. So I always erase the lines a bit to lighten them up.



So far, so good.



Believe it or not, there are polka dots here. On the left side you can just barely make them out. Originally  I wanted a very soft, watercolor look. Then I saw they were just too pale – especially after I added the green border.



I darkened the polka dots & added some pink butterflies.



Plus I wasn’t thrilled with a solid green border. I had thought I’d paint some flowers in the border, but I was in a rush to get it done so I just added some more ivory in a checkerboard pattern.



Much better. But it still needed something . . . my mind kept thinking back to The Magic Brush’s cute name canvases. But it was late Saturday night and I couldn’t run to the store for any feathers.



I added some little bees. Then I went over the dots, butterflies & bees with fine-tip markers, just to add a little oomph.



The markers added just enough. See how the yellow pops now? I could’ve gone with a brighter yellow – like the bees – but I still wanted that really soft ‘baby girl’ look.



I dug up some ivory grosgrain ribbon and glued it around the sides. I like the little bow – just enough, you know?

So that was one of my weekend projects. What did you work on? Anything to share with these linky parties?




















Colleen