Rolling out the Blank Canvas

After flag garland, the next thing on my list for my upcoming first ever art fair booth was the main sign. I purchased a 3' x 5' piece of primed canvas from Dick Blick. And I really have to remember this stuff for future sign making, kid projects, etc. This huge piece was a steal for under $8. Plus I can roll it back up on the sturdy cardboard roll it came with for easy transport to wherever my show tour may take me.

The first step was to transfer my nameplate to the canvas. I printed out my name (in tiles...this was huge) from the computer. After I drew lines and knew where everything should go, I attempted to hunt down carbon paper. Stuff I knew I had somewhere, but for the life of me could not find. Refusing to go to the store, I came up with an alternate plan for transferring that works just as great. I took charcoal sticks (wowza! that's my box from college!) and charcoaled over the letters on the back of the paper. Then I flipped the paper right side and traced the outline of the letters with a pencil. The charcoal left a perfect line on the canvas.

Next I recreated what you see at the very top of this blog ('hey did ya notice the new header...up there?!' ...me pointing to top of screen.) Paint flew and things got pretty messy at this stage, but that's okay. You gotta have a little fun to sell it. I laid the canvas out to dry in the guest bedroom a.k.a. warmest room of the house with a threatening sign. Maybe a "Please DO NOT STEP ON" would have been nicer, but that might have taken away from the strong message I wanted to communicate to the eight other feet in the house.

Tah-dah!... here it is all finished. Well, almost finished. I still need to give it a coat or two of protective varnish. Plus an edge trim. Checking this off the list + flags is HUGE. I'm starting to see my vision come together. Next up is bags. Believe it or not, over thinking bags for customer purchases is what threw me into logo redesign mode in the first place. I've got a thing for a good store bag. More prep craziness coming soon.