DIY: Old “Wine and Canvas” Canvas Upcycle {Guest Post}

Last February, I attended my first “Wine and Canvas” event. Never heard of it? Basically, Art Uncorked puts on these gatherings in different restaurants and bars in the Bay Area where you can drink and be merry all whilst learning how to paint an iconic painting. (Sounds kinda cool, right?) Each session is three-and-a-half hours, which I thought to be ample time to create an acrylic painting. How hard could it be? Uhhhhh, actually super hard. My friend, Stefanie, and I found ourselves still at Pause: Wine Bar many minutes past our deadline. I remember very vividly that both of us started to sweat from the pressure of trying to finish. It was hilarious because I was so baffled at what I had done in an all-of-a-sudden measly three (and some change) hours. It was pathetic, especially because I wasn’t really distracted either. At the end of the night, the coordinator took pictures of each masterpiece, for lack of a better term.

Here’s a pic of the goods:

I’m determined to stick to words from now on. So, back to Pinterest. There is a popular pin going around on DIY: Canvases so I decided to try my hand at it, see if it was any easier than drawing it out myself. Verdict: YEAH. YEAH IT WAS. Literally, these were the steps I took:

1. Paint stripes on a canvas, any colors you want. (I did blue and green.) You can use tape to keep the lines straight, but I didn’t purely because I was feeling lazy that day. Anyway, let it dry thoroughly. I used acrylic paint so drying time wasn’t too bad.

2. Place stickers on canvas, any way you want. (I made a letter cloud with words falling out of it.)

3. Paint over the stickers, with whatever color you want except for the stripe colors. Let it dry thoroughly. (Go grab a beverage or something. I’m sure by step 4, you’ll be completely parched from all of the not-hard work you’re doing.)

4. Peel off the stickers.

5. Hang that crap on the wall. Or in my case, leave it on your dresser for weeks.

It took a while for each layer to dry, but come on.  5 steps to a new piece of art is unheard of. (Unless you’re one of those people who calls rocks and stuff “art”. You’re so “cool”.) If you wanna make it 6 steps, you could run some fine sandpaper over it like I did to give it a more distressed look.

Here’s the finished product: