Bow wow wow…

Yippie yo, yippie yay…

Where my dogs at?

There they are.  🙂

Any Snoop Dog fans out there?

I love ALL things music.  I don’t know music, like people in the know know music.  I just love it in all shapes and sizes.  Fo shizzle. 🙂

And who doesn’t love a puppy?  Or a silhouette of a big dog?

I got so many great comments on these guys (thanks to you for that!) when I revealed the gallery wall and here’s how you, too, can make canvas silhouettes of really anything you have a photo of.  It’s easy as 1-2-3 (4-5-6-7).  😉

You may remember that my canvases were a couple of Goodwill finds that I flipped back to front?

They are the two on the right.  The one on the left got painted black…and is still just black Zoe.  😦

You could easily just buy new white canvases but I rarely take the sensible easy way. These are 12 x 12 inch squares and only cost me $2 a piece.  That ended up being the only money spent on this project.  Booyah!

Since these canvases didn’t have any backing I just had to flip them over and, using a mini pry bar and hammer, remove all of the staples.

I do recommend not stabilizing the canvas with your knee unless you’re ok with this happening.

I’m happy to report I will survive.  🙂

TIP!!!  After you remove all of the staples I recommend ironing the creases in the canvas to bend the other way so you’re not fighting with the canvas when trying to restaple it inside out.  Make sense?

Then you really just have to line up your seams and restaple the canvas back on the frame.

You may recall I had some billowing at this stage?  I didn’t end up fixing it in anyway but once painted, you can’t see it at all, so if your goal is a pure white canvas you may need to just buy a new one.

I do have thoughts on avoiding the billowing, if you’re interested email me.

OK, so now you have your blank slate, er, canvas.

One of the funnest (Yes, I know it’s not a word, but I like the non word so choose to use it.) parts of this project was scouring all of our photos for good profile pics of the girls.

I mean, who doesn’t love to lay their head on a pillow?

Thank goodness this wasn’t a snapper.  (We have very few picture of Mico even remotely looking in the direction of the camera.)

They just make me smile.

And look at this wicked cool pic my brother took of his boarder collie out in the field on the farm.

 But, back to the silhouettes, I was looking for profile pictures, so I picked these.

(I ended up using a different picture of black dog because once I had the sitting picture cut out I didn’t like the way it looked.)

After I had my pics selected I resized them so they would fill an 8 x 10 sheet of paper and printed them on regular paper on my at home printer.  If you want a bigger canvas you could definitely resize the pic bigger and have it printed at a printer.

Or, have you heard of Block Poster?  I haven’t used it but from the looks of it you can upload an image, enlarge it and then print it in blocks so you could maybe tape it together and follow the rest of the steps here.

If you have tried this, or try it now, please let me in on the deets, I’d love to know!

TIP!!!  I rotated my photos to the direction I wanted during editing, but realized after printing that I didn’t need to because you could just trace your silhouette with your printed pic upside down.  Duh!  😉  Also, flipping your cut out image upside down to the plain white side of your paper gives a good idea of what the silhouette will look like without any of the other details in the photo.

After the pics were printed I used my exacto knife to cut out, as true to detail as possible, around the outline of the dogs.Then I traced the outline of the image onto the canvas.

Then I painted.  I started with the edges of the canvas and then worked toward my traced image.  I figured less chance of accidentally smudging my detail lines if I do them last, right?!?

 I think I did a better job with some eye lash detail on the black canvas.

But overall, I am pretty much in all out love with these guys.

And their spot in the one screw gallery wall.

Let’s see how many steps it took…

1 – Buy canvas
2 – Pick your picture
3 – Resize picture
4 – Print picture
5 – Cut out picture
6 – Trace picture onto canvas
7 – Paint outside the lines.

See, just like I said.  😉

If I’ve missed any detail, or you want more info on any particular step please just shoot me an email.

Here’s the pic of Marley.
And here’s her canvas.

Here’s the pic of Mico…admittedly not a great pic…sorry about the full on backside view.
 And here’s her canvas.  You can see I didn’t add the collar detail to the canvas.

Hmmm, and this makes me think Mico’s canvas needs a nose job.  Doesn’t it look kind of rounded where the pic is straight?  How did that happen?  

Anyway, I still dig ’em.  What about you?  Know of any other ways to make a canvas silhouette for only $2?   Made any of your own, if so please link them up to my Facebook page, I’d love to see them.

And, I definitely can not do a dog related post with out saying a heart felt, tear streaked RIP dear Romeo.  You were the best dog park running partner.  We will miss our cheese and cracker happy hours and I know you have filled my dear friends Jen and Harry with many a memory to look back on and smile…even through the current tears.  I can see you jumping clouds and chasing bunnies now.  XO

And, if any of you would like some REAL canvas art I know an incredibly talented artist in Maryland who made us these beauties a few years back.  Please, please, please email me if you’re interest, she is the real deal.  These pictures truly capture the nature of each of our girls.

Like the size of my stocking on the left compared with Joel’s 48 stocking on the right?  😉

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I am sharing this project here and at:
BNOTP, Home Stories A to Z, Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, Today’s Creative and Sugar Bee Crafts.

Posted by Karah @ thespacebetweenblog on February 9, 2012

https://thespacebetweenblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/diy-canvas-silhouettes/