Hello World!
Since Christmas just rolled by... I had the chance to make a lot more crafts than usual. Because... Well, I had a deadline to meet: presents!! But I couldn't reveal my latest crafting endeavors until after Christmas was over. Haha. So... Here we go! Canvas photos!
This is one of the first crafting projects that I ever pinned on Pinterest, so I've been looking for the opportunity to do this project for a long time. The concept is rather simple: print out a photo on regular paper, and then transfer that ink onto a mounted canvas of your choice. The blog that I followed gave some pretty good tips and tricks, and now I'm adding a few more tips of my own. :)
To start off, gather all your supplies:
- Printed copy of desired picture
- Mounted canvas
- Gel medium (I used Liqudex, purely because that was the brand the blogger used and I didn't know which one to use. Haha)
- Spray bottle with water
- Newspaper (it gets messy!)
- Furniture oil
- Cloth for oil
One thing to keep in mind for this project is that there's always a bit of trial and error. I thought I would be pleased with my first attempt at this project, but I ended up redoing more than half my pictures because I didn't like how they turned out. Haha.
For the canvases, I chose ones with a thick frame because I wanted the finished project to be able to stand up on its own. I chose small canvases (size 4x4 and 5x5) because I was afraid of starting with a canvas that was too difficult to work with. Even so, the "larger" canvas I used was already a challenge to work with.
When I first printed out my pictures, I sized all my photos on Word so that I could print out more than one picture on one page. That... Was my first mistake. Haha. Even though the canvas that I was working with was rather small, it's still better to print out a picture with high resolution. After I complete my first batch of photos.... I was so displeased with the results that I had to redo them (I'll show you what I mean). For the second batch I printed the photos straight from Photoshop, which turned out much, much better. Another tip to keep in mind is that pictures with dark colors are a lot easier to work with than pictures with light colors, even if dark photos use more ink. Haha.
With that being said... Let's move on to the actual project, shall we? I printed out my photos with the measurements being slightly smaller than the actual canvas size in order to give the finished product a border. I also inverted the photos so that the finished project would have an image that was facing the correct way. After printing out the photo, I painted a thin layer of the mat gel onto the canvases and placed the photo over them. I used a light behind the canvas and photo in order to center it. Then I rubbed the photo onto the canvas so that no gel bubbles remained. This is why you don't want to have a thick layer of gel. If the mat gel is too thick, it's easier for the picture to bunch up and form wrinkles in your picture. Another challenge I ran into was that the larger the frame/canvas, the less stable the canvas was. For the small frame, I could easily press the photo down, but with the larger frame, the center of the canvas was less stable, making it harder for me to ensure that the photo was properly glued to the canvas.
After all photos were completed, I let the photos dry overnight.
The next evening, I laid out some newspaper on the floor to catch the mess I was about to make. Hahaha. I took a spray bottle and sprayed the photo. The first time I sprayed too much water and ended up dripping water on the floor. The trick is to spray slowly and let the water soak into the paper before proceeding.
After the water soaks through, start rubbing! Basically, here we are rubbing all the paper off, leaving the ink on the canvas. Since there is so much excess paper, I started by rubbing/tearing off the paper on the sides first.
Before long, I could start to see the picture show through! Once you get a generous layer of paper off the canvas, I would start to slow down. When I was doing this part... I was watching dramas and I didn't really pay that much attention to my photo, which resulted in....
... This. Whoops. Haha. Although the missing paint effect makes everything look more vintage-y... It happened a lot quicker than I expected. Once a little bit of paint starts peeling off, it becomes a lot easier for paint to continue peeling off... So be careful!
This was my first batch of finished photos. As you can see, the lighter colored ones are still a little cloudy looking. That's because the paint started peeling too much, so I couldn't rub off any more.
The blog said that I could take away the cloudiness if I used funiature oil, so I went out and got some furniture oil. Who knew it only came in such large quantities? I guess it make sense since you'd need a lot of oil for one piece of furniture. It took away the cloudiness for a little bit... But once the oil dried, the cloudiness returned.
It looked good for a while.... But not for long... So I decided to try the project one more time. This time... I was ready....!
Again... Dark photos turned out much better than light ones. But dark ones are also considerably harder to get paint off at all (making it hard to create the "vintage" effect)
Here are some comparison photos from my first batch with my second batch.
Much better. There was still some cloudy residue, even on the second batch... But I discovered that, if I load up on furniture oil (and I mean LOAD up. Don't be shy! Haha), the cloudiness really did go away.
Finally I coated the picture with the mat gel that I used in the very beginning. This was more in order to seal in the photo and give it a waterproof cover.
And viola! Canvas photos! Let me know what you guys think, or if you guys have any questions!
As always, thanks for reading!
:)
Oh! And Happy New Year!!
