Thursday, January 5, 2012

Daddy's Homemade Christmas Present

I've had an idea of a gift for Jon in my mind for some time now......an idea I got here {scroll down a bit until you come to a canvas}. I started saving bottle caps of various colors. Last minute {like week of Christmas last minute!!} I was perusing the paint section at a craft store & stumbled upon something called "heavy structure gel".......it's an acrylic medium. I read the label......quickly learning that when this "gel" is mixed with paint & applied to canvas it will create texture! I have never used this stuff but in that moment my mind thought.....canvas....paint....mosaic type look.....fish....PERFECT!! This was, after all, a group effort between myself & the girls & I wanted them to have as much hands on time as possible! This would allow just that! The night before we painted the fish I painted the entire canvas.....Kayden picked out the color & we were all pleased with the end result....matches our house perfectly! Thursday before Christmas we Googled several pictures of fish & the girls decided on one! I then roughly sketched it on to paper.....erasing & sketching....erasing & sketching until we liked we saw on paper. I then did my best to pencil onto canvas what I had drawn on paper.
We mixed many many colors with the medium & got to work. I had this painters platter from a previous canvas painting birthday party of Kayden's {we used it to told cupcakes} & it came in quite handy!
I had purchased little sculpting tools for the girls to apply the paint....not a one paint brush was used.
There was no rhyme or reason to our paint application madness & there was no worry of perfection.....how can you mess up a "mosaic look"?!!
The girls took several breaks & I just let that inner artist come out in me......good therapy!
Pretty certain that not a one of us are good secret keepers but for the most part Jon had NO CLUE what we had made him!
THEY WERE THRILLED to say the least while watching him rip paper off!
I was still able to use some of the bottle caps to make an "H" for Hughes & 1 for his eye!
Now to find the "perfect" hanging spot.....

2 comments:

Home Project Manager said...

So cute! Love it! I'm sure Jon loves it too!

Ashley said...

Amazing! I love your creativity and how you always have your girls doing something creative! So important! :-)