I Am Not a Painter...Paint by Stamp Tutorial

...but the kids and I really had fun painting together on Sunday. I'd been wanting to experiment with making a canvas creation with my stamps from "A Year of Flowers", as well as giving my kids an opportunity to work on real canvas to later hang in their rooms. The end result was pretty close to my original vision, I kept it loose and"artsy-looking" to compensate for my lack of "mad painting skeelz" LOL! To make your own stamped wall art you need a cheap canvas(few dollars), acrylic paints(50 cents a bottle), a few brushes, STAMPS, and black craft ink (I used SU!, craft ink is just like paint in a pad).
First I painted a bright yellow background (then I wouldn't have to go back and try to paint around everything) leaving a little bit of white around the edge. I painted the sides later with a bright red since I planned to leave it unframed (and add a little somethin' in that space, you'll see...) Next I stamped my flowers in Going Gray classic ink (you could use a different light color, too, you're going to paint over it.) Be sure to put something up underneath your canvas like a book first so you have a hard solid surface to stamp (since the pulled canvas will give when pressed). I still lost a little detail in the center, but I was able to add in a little bit of detail with a pen at the end...

Then I roughly filled in the whole image with paint. I didn't really tried to shade, just slopped the paint on! (Sorry I didn't take some more in between pics, I was supervising the kids and kind of forgot!) Last I stamped my image again on top of the paint colored area with Basic Black Craft ink to bring out the detail, again so I wouldn't have to paint around my lines! (Below you can see I've done this over my daisies but haven't gone back over the leaves yet.) I didn't use a Stampamjig, just eyeballed it, was kind of going for the "free-form sketchiness" of having some overlap with the background color or each other rather than a perfect fit. The pot I just painted in myself.

As you can see here I did mask in places, just with my same paper masks I use when mask on my cards. Below I'm covering my daisy so I can stamp over those green patches with my inked leaf outlines in black) I did wait until each layer dried so I'd get a better impression and wouldn't get my stamps all goopy with paint.

Last, I added "my signature quote" in own handwriting* with a black Copic around the sides to create border. I added shorter quotes I like about art in the red space on the sides. Here it is! It won't win any prizes, but it's good enough for my craft room and I had a blast working on it! (The colors are so cheerful I can enjoy it without focusing on the mistakes.) Choosing the special quotes added a bit of magic to it (for me) just like special journalling brings a scrapbook page to life.

I will probably make a few changes to this later, like add another flower still work in progess; the beauty of paint and canvas, you can go right over it! The canvas came in a 2 pack, so with the other instead of a still life I plan on trying something a little more Pop Art "Andy Warhol"-looking, I'll come back with it if I think it's worth sharing...

And now, here's me just being silly with my camera and drawing figure:

"Look ma, no hands!!"

"Oh here, let me straighten this...."

I hope this post inspires you to pick up some paint and try your favorite stamp images out on a larger "canvas" than just cards! :) (I think I'll stick to my cardmaking "day job" LOL!, but to quote Tim Gunn, this was truly a "soul-stirring" experience! :)

"If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. ~Vincent Van Gogh

(I may have had this quote on my blog before, because I just love it, I include it here not just literally since this post is about painting, but because I think it's just so important to just go for it when creating(anything)!! Vincent is the bomb!!)

*I don't LOVE my handwriting, but it's definitely part of my creative process, (I am forever making notes about my sets, they weave in and out of stamp sketches) so while I don't believe it to be beautiful, I'm okay with making it part of the art here :) (although I don't "go there" on my cards, have you noticed??) ;)