Tada!

In case you missed it…

Step 1: Building the wood canvas
Step 2: Priming and painting

The next step was to draw up a template as a guide for where to hammer in the nails. Like magic, I opened up my giant drawing pad I’ve had since high school and found a pre-drawn circle in it that was almost big enough. If you don’t have a magic drawing pad full of pre-drawn circles or an enormous compass just lying around, you can try any of these methods to draw a circle.

Remember your trusty old protractor from high school math class? He misses you. Find the center point of the circle and draw a line through the diameter in any direction. Line up your happy little protractor and make a small mark every 10 degrees all the way around, then flip it over and do it again. Remove the protractor and use a long ruler to draw more diameter lines that line up 10 degree marks on opposite sides with the center point.

I extended the lines past the circle edge because I decided that I wanted it bigger, so I just measured an extra inch outside the edge to place each of my dots.

Pop Quiz! If you’ve placed dots every 10 degrees on a circle, how many dots do you have? If you said 36 because there are 360 degrees in a circle — congratulations, you really were awake in class! You can do more or fewer dots if you prefer, just make sure there’s an even number of them.

Ok, time to center the template on the canvas. Use your ruler to find the center of the canvas and line it up with the center point of the template. Tape it down with any tape that will peel up easily without leaving adhesive behind (Hint: Don’t use duct tape. Why would you do that?)

Take a nail, and start tapping in pilot holes all the way around. You’re not trying to hammer the nail all the way in, just enough to leave marks for later.

Ok, now here’s where I made things harder for myself than they had to be. I’m gonna show you what I did first and then tell you what would have worked better.

I was worried that because the face of the canvas was so thin, that the nails might not stand up straight in the finished product when they had string on them tugging in different directions. I ordered some florist’s foam off Amazon to adhere to the back of the canvas so that the nails would have something deeper to hold on to.

I made sure to cut it thinner than the canvas is deep. Wear safety glasses and even a face mask for this if you have one. This stuff shreds and gets crunchy green dust everywhere.

I then used the template to mark off where the circle was on the front by using a pencil to mark through all the little holes I made in it with the nail earlier. Then I glued down pieces of foam making sure to cover every dot and let it dry.

And that is where I went wrong. The glue on the back of the canvas made it really hard to drive the nails in. It would have been much better if I had just driven all the nails in first and then just stuck the foam onto the nail ends in the back. It would have held just as well and been a lot easier. Oh well.

Ok so, back to what I actually did. I started by just hammering the nails in enough to get them all in, then I went back around and hammered them all down to the height that I wanted. I did this on a rug so that the canvas wouldn’t damage the floor.

And now we make art! I tied the crochet thread to a nail at the bottom and started by making the big star-like pattern you see in the background. To do this, I looped it around every 33rd nail working clockwise until it came back to the start. You won’t have to count anymore once you get it going and can see the pattern more fully.

I immediately started the next later by looping every 18th nail, still working in the same direction until it came back to the start. At that point, I was pretty happy with the look of it, so I tied it off.

The last step was to trim the ends off and seal them with a little dot of clear-drying glue.

And there you have it! You can add more layers if you want a fuller look or even use several different colors of thread. I may end up putting one more layer on this one sometime in the future, but I’m pretty happy with it for now.

Can’t wait to start the next project!

March 29, 2012 Alayna Discussion 13 comments

I’ve gotten a bit farther on my art project, the first part of which can be found here.

Now that the canvas had been assembled and the wood glue paste had dried, it could be sanded smooth. I started with a medium grain sanding block to file down the bulk of the imperfections. I used a circular motion while applying pressure, being careful not to rub too hard on the edges which could cause them to splinter. Once all the bumps were smoothed out, I went over it again with a fine grit sanding block to remove any rugged texture caused by the first sanding.

I also needed to fill in two knots on the face with a bit more wood glue to make an even surface.

Once that was dry, it was time to prime! Just like when painting a wall, a good prime coat can help to seal the surface so that the top coat of color doesn’t just get soaked up like a sponge leaving splotches of uneven color. I could have used a white paint or even one a shade lighter than my top coat to prime with, but I chose to use Mod Podge, a very clear-drying glue-like substance that I had on hand.

I used a brush because that’s what I had, but I would highly recommend you use a foam brush or small foam roller if you can find one, as they don’t cause the same streakiness and texture that a bristle brush can cause. Ideally, spray paint would have been even better for both primer and topcoat as it would completely eliminate texture, but I couldn’t find a color that I liked. I just used extra care in painting the primer on as smoothly as I could while still working quickly, because if you try to paint over an area that is partially dry you’ll end up creating even more undesirable texture on the surface.

When the primer was dry, I was ready for the top coat. I used this Martha Stewart acrylic craft paint in “deep sea” with a satin finish. Next to it is the contrasting mint-colored crochet thread I’ll be using to make the string art with later!

I painted the sides first…

And finished the top making sure that all of my brush strokes were in the same direction. This canvas got one more coat with all brushstrokes in the opposite direction, again to minimize the unavoidable surface texture created when using a bristle brush.

That bottle of craft paint ended up being exactly enough to cover the canvas twice. Lucky!

Now, I’m waiting for something to come in the mail before I can work on this project any more. You’ll see what that is on the next project update!

March 13, 2012 Alayna Discussion 6 comments

I have been saying for literally years that I’ve wanted to start making art for myself again. Since high school, I’ve only made a handful of pieces, and most of them have been gifts for other people. I’m not sure why it’s been such a struggle for me to make art, though I think it may have something to do with the fact that as I’ve grown I’ve gotten better at expressing myself more directly, so I no longer need to get my emotions and ideas out on canvas when I’m actually voicing them.

So, I’ve started my first art piece this year, hopefully one of many to come. I thought I’d share the process of creating this piece on the blog mostly just for fun but also so that if anyone wants to create something similar, the steps will be right here for you to follow!

Maybe you’ve seen some of the string and spirograph inspired art that’s been really popular lately…

I wanted to create something similar but with a colored background and bright eye-popping string. First though, I had to build a canvas. I’ve had the materials for a while now but just got around to putting them together yesterday.

I bought a pre-cut piece of poplar and 4 poplar slats for the sides. I positioned the slats on the wood canvas and marked off where I needed to cut them to fit.

I used a tiny handsaw from our toolkit to cut through each slat one at a time, with a sheet of paper on the floor to catch the sawdust.

Safety first!

When the canvas was assembled, I put some heavy books on top of it to weigh it down and let it sit for a few hours to dry. Then I ran a bead of wood glue around the inside edge and smoothed it out with my finger to add further stability.

Next step, fixing imperfections. I took the sawdust that fell onto the paper and mixed it with wood glue to make a sand-able paste.

Then I spackled it into any cracks, dents, rough edges, or low spots. It doesn’t have to be perfect since it’ll get sanded.

After drying, I applied one more coat of the sawdust spackle. Now it’s drying until tomorrow when I’ll sand it down and add the first coat of paint.

And that is how I made a wood canvas! I’ve been wanting to experiment with painting on wood because it’s so much smoother than canvas. I don’t like all the cloth texture that a fabric canvas has. Anyway, I’ll update as I work on it some more.

Have you ever recreated a craft project from one you saw online or on tv?

March 2, 2012 Alayna Discussion 13 comments