Snowman Canvas Painting

Well I have been wanting to try painting on canvas for a while now. I have painted a few really simple things like our family name. This consisted of painting the background and using a paint pen to trace our name. So to start out the new year I finally did it, I painted a picture on canvas. I may not have done it the way a pro would, but I did it.
I have to say that I have put this off because I was very intimidated by the process and I really can't draw much less paint. I decided it is paint after all and if it looks terrible I could just paint over it.
I kept the attitude that it was for me and it didn't have to be perfect. (Have I mentioned I have a small OCD problem?) But this is the year to just go for it and get those creative juices going again.
They have been dormant to long.

Here he is......

I think he's kinda cute.

I started off with a blank canvas. . . that sounds so silly doesn't it, of course it was a blank canvas.
The color for the background was inspired by the snowman I saw over at MAY DAYS and the fact that blue is my favorite color. I used cobalt blue.

Believe me I took several deep breaths and there was some hesitation before I put the paint on the canvas.
I debated on painting the snowman first and then painting around him but I decided to just paint him on the blue. Not sure if this is how it should have been done but it's what I did.

I painted about four coats of blue because it is such a dark color being painted on white.

I placed the paint in a plastic shopping bag in between each coat of paint.

I just closed the bag around the extra paint and brush so that it didn't start to dry out.

3rd coat, almost ready

After the fourth coat I decided it looked good and the white was coated good enough.

After it dried I left it for a couple of days and then I decided I would draw what I thought I wanted it to look like on the canvas with a pencil.
I'm not sure if you can tell but I had planned on writing Let It Snow over the top, more on that in a minute.
I had looked at this snowman plate for some added inspiration and then it became my paint tray.

As you can see the white was going to need a couple of coats of paint.

Ok so about the Let It Snow, as I said I can't paint but I really can't paint letters. I hated how the letters looked so tried to wipe them off before the paint dried. I knew it would be a mess but the letters were not staying.

So guess what???? Another coat of blue paint, this time around the snowman to cover my mistake.

I painted a couple more coats of white and then added a scarf.

Yes the scarf would need a couple of coats. The red I used to start with wasn't bright enough so I painted the next couple of coats with a brighter red.
Now for some eye's, a mouth and some buttons. I tried a couple of different things to find the size of these and my final choice was a pencil eraser.



I dabbed the eraser in the black paint and then dabbed off the extra paint. When I was checking for sizes I noticed that the first dot I made was larger because it had excess paint on it, so in order to keep the sizes the same I dabbed off the extra paint.

Here goes....

and here he is


Here are the colors of paint I used.
Cobalt Blue - background
White -snowman body
Pure Orange - nose
Black - buttons
Engine red and Berry red - scarf
The berry red was brighter and is on top of the engine red.

I added a nose after practicing on a scrap piece of paper.

I also added some fringe to his scarf and I even tried my hand at some highlights, I still want to do some on the scarf so that it looks more like a knot has been tied. Just haven't decided how to do that. I loved how the tiny, tiny, speck in the eyes made such a difference.

I also added some snow to the background. I am still debating on a hat or not and hanging him or just propped up. I will decide on the hat later, but for now he is propped up on a shelf by our fire place welcoming the snow.
So the moral of this post is to GO FOR IT! ! Is he perfect? no Could someone else do a better job? sure they are all over blog land
But the lesson I learned is that just by trying I got something I had been wanting and I learned a few things along the way that I would do different , I tried something I had been wanting to do and I like how it turned out.
I hope to try and do many more things this year that I have been putting off and I hope that you will to.

I am linking to :