The Painted Canvas

Two of them are on canvas now, and one to go, and poor Granny is tired tonight!

I have an adjustment to make on the spot on the left on his cheek - my thought was to make sure the skipped area showed well enough, but this is too much. Just a bit of red paint will fix it. I am pleased with the effect of the cotton balls, as they look fuzzy. Stitching them will be a challenge.

Jake and Natalie worked well too - but, again, the dress is a challenge, as I want the look of the colored markers to be obvious.

I'm showing the painting of the Santa in progress to illustrate how very easy it is to paint it correctly when the drawing has been done well.



















The arrows are pointing to the places where the drawing was placed ON THE THREAD so it was easy to just follow the ink lines.

When this is well done, a stitcher is grateful, as it shows one exactly where the stitches are to be placed. When buying a painted canvas in a shop, one would do well to examine it first to make sure this has been done. There are so many out there now that look good at first glance, but are nearly impossible to work easily.

Now for the last one, which is in progress - Madeline's Sunflower. She was in a class at only age 5, exploring the medium of watercolor, and learning to control it for painting an object. I have saved this one for a very long time, and intend to frame it - it is a beautiful work of art in my opinion. Stitching it in needlepoint will be a challenge - as will painting it. (I do enjoy this part!)


I like working on 18 mesh, so just enlarged this a bit on my color copy machine, as I didn't want to do it full size and waste ink. (not necessary).














I drew around the shaped elements that need to work well on canvas, using a Papermate FLAIR pen, as it's felt tip and ink work well on paper without bleeding through. (This pen is not waterfproof and is not to be used for drawing on needlepoint canvas.)

Next, I made a tracing of the black lines, and then placed a piece of canvas over it to see if it would work in that size. It was a bit small for separating the pattern elements and making them work well, so I will enlarge the drawing by about 20%, which should be much better.

There will probably be more instruction in this "tutorial" in a few days, but as previously stated - I'm awfully tired, and my brain wires are short circuited tonight. It's time for tea and a movie.!! or better yet - a coke float and a good book.