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Craft Show Preparations

4 days ago

Well, you could call it Craft Show preparations- or you could call it- the week of Panic!

My old show banner is damask paper sewn into a banner. And it is very cute- and also fragile!

So a new show sign was in order- Wow, what a lot of work, next time it might be worth it to purchase a fancy vinyl job. 

I painted a 15 inch by 60 inch canvas. I'm weird so I actually had that size on hand from a canvas sale over 5 years ago. I looked at some of my favorite artists for inspiration, and one day while both kids slept- I jumped in and only had 20 minutes to get work done. 

So over a weekend I worked on the colors and over washes. I took a cotton ball and dripped turpentine and burnt umber over the other oil paints. This made a cool effect.

Then I had to choose a font. So, I played around on www.dafont.com. I was pretty successful after a few hours and I settled on Sauerkraut.

My printer died- or rather stopped recognizing my ink cartridge, mean old thing. Had to rush out and buy a printer, and print off the letters- sized 800. Then used an Xacto knife to cut those babies out. 

I used a water color pencil to outline a few letters and I filled in the flatter outside pieces when I could. 

Then I filled those letters in with Sharpie. Of course I got mad, when in day light I could see the lines of the coloring. Argh! So I painted in with Payne's gray oil paint- thinned out a bit. This helped me get an all over coverage that really helped. Thinning it- that helped it dry in about a 24 hour period.

Last I used a cool powder additive that left a beautiful purple sheen highlight over the letters. In this picture, you will notice that effect especially on the J and O.