The other morning I was reading some blogs and came upon Kim’s fingerpainted canvas art and was instantly inspired and motivated. I thought, “I’ve pinned something like that several times on Pinterest, now it’s time to actually make it. And I have all the supplies on hand. Jaye and I are making our own fingerpainted canvas art TODAY.”
Basically: (1) Take a canvas, (2) Apply stickers or vinyl in the shape of whatever quote or image you want, (3) Let baby go to town with fingerpaints, (4) Once paint is dry, remove stickers, (5) Enjoy art that is awesome on its own merits and not just because your kid made it!
If you don’t have stickers on hand or a handy cutting machine like a Silhouette, you’ll have to do it the old fashioned way. First, I printed out the quote I wanted in a font I liked. Then I cut around those paper letters. Next, I taped the paper letters to some laminating paper (because that’s what I had on hand). Tape the letters to the laminate side, not the paper side so that your sticker will be forwards not backwards. Then I cut around the letters again, cutting out a laminate sticker at the same time. Finally, I pressed the stickers to the canvas and peeled off the paper from the front. Press your stickers on really firmly. Particularly if your toddler is a vigorous fingerpainter.
This is the best part. Let your toddler or baby (or even yourself!) go wild fingerpainting all over the canvas, stickers and all! I restricted Jaye to various blue tones. It helped give the final fingerpainted canvas art a more classy appearance. And kept the whole thing from becoming a muddy brown mush of colors. If you want to use lots of colors, it helps to let each color dry in between so the paints don’t combine into mush.
Peel off the stickers once the paint is dry and voila! We had a little error in ours, due to Jaye’s vigorous fingerpainting, she knocked of the “ou” of the word “You” so I just carefully painted those letters on with white paint. You can’t even tell from far away.
The quote is more readable in person. I love the new fingerpainted canvas art on our gallery wall! You can check out the beginning of our gallery art wall here–clearly I need an updated shot of the full wall, since I’ve added a lot since then! Have you tried any DIY canvas art lately? Maybe some fingerpainting? Or another toddler art activity?
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That’s really cute. I totally have to try that some time.
This turned out so cute! It’s a fun project, and I know it will be even more fun when Henry’s a bit older.
I also love the saying you used.
Very cool!
I don’t know if it would work on canvas, but I know on paper instead of using stickers or appliques, you can just use a white crayon. The paint doesn’t stick to the waxy surface, and you can make any design you can think of formation.