The Road Quickly Traveled or Painting Canvas Quote Art

After taking down our Christmas decorations, my DIY rustic modern open shelving in the dining room started looking pretty sad. Like really sad. Crap started piling up (e.g. bubble solution, blood pressure machine, mail, placemats, and more) So I decided it was time to clear them off and properly accessorize, starting with a (fairly) fast and easy canvas quote art I made.

I started with a quote I liked and a big blank canvas. I’d bought the canvas for super cheap ($4.99 and it’s 18 x 24!) from the Christmas Tree Shops awhile back. The project I’d had planned for it didn’t ever happen, which worked out perfectly for my dining room shelves. To get the text size right for my canvas quote art, I used Photoshop Elements to create a new document with the same dimensions as my canvas. Then I typed in the quote and just adjusted the font size until it looked right. Of course, my printer couldn’t print 18 x 24, but once I knew what the best font size was, I just printed the text out on as many pages as it took. Does that make any sense?

Once the text was printed, I cut each word up individually and placed them on the canvas so I could decide on the spacing and how many words could fit on each line. It was really helpful to be able to see the layout in real life. Next I had to figure out how to get the text on the canvas! I wanted the quote to look like it was painted freehand, but there’s no way I trusted myself to actually paint it freehand. I thought about making a stencil, but I thought a stencil would look too perfect and not freehand.

Finally, I remembered about doing pencil rubbings back in my homeschool days tracing leaves and nature items. So I used the same technique to get the text on the page. Turn your printed words over and outline the back of the shape in pencil, pressing down hard. Make sure to do this on the back, so that when you transfer it to the canvas, it’s facing the right way!

Then place your word on the canvas wherever you want it to go. Now scribble all over the front of the letter, pressing hard so that the pencil on the back presses onto the canvas. Ta-da! Now you have a light outline to serve as a guide while you are painting the text onto your canvas.

I didn’t take any pictures of the painting process, because I was (obviously) busy painting. But I just used a thin paintbrush and some black acrylic paint from the craft store. Nothing fancy. I painted over the pencil rubbings. I didn’t worry too much about it staying perfectly in the lines because I was looking for a more natural look. I flicked some black paint flecks onto the bottom because I thought it looked cool. Then I just propped my new canvas quote art up on the shelf and patted myself on the back.

The shelves are still pretty empty, but I’m working on finding more cool things to accessorize with. I’ll keep yo posted.