How To: Chevron Painted Canvas

If you follow me on Pinterest, you may hove noticed a few months back that I pinned this bag from Etsy.

via

While the bag itself is great, the actual reason that I pinned this picture is that I love, love the chevron pattern and color scheme and thought it would be great to recreate on a canvas. I've been desperately trying to find solutions for all the empty wall space throughout our house. I'm not a fan of most art I see in places like Marshalls and don't have the wallet to purchase legit paintings. So my solution is to DIY my wall art.

To create this chevron canvas the supplies I used:

- Canvas - any size. (I used 12x12)

- Ruler and pencil

- Painter's or masking tape

- Paint colors of your choice

- Sponge or small paint brush

To get started, you need to divide your canvas by how thick you want your stripes to be. 

Since my canvas was 12x12 I opted to make 12 one inch squares across and vertically. 

I would suggest drawing your lines very lightly. I made the mistake of drawing mine a little too dark and needed to try and erase the lines once the painting was finished. 

Once your square are set, you can start drawing the chevron pattern. To do this, you simply draw a line, corner to corner, across the middle of your first square. Repeat this in the same direction for every square below going vertically. Draw a line in the opposite direction for both squares on either side.

If my directions are a little confusing, use the below picture as a reference.

After the chevron pattern has been drawn out, I cut several two inch strips of painters tape and put them along every other chevron line. I wanted the stripes between to remain white.

This was the most tedious part for me. Again, I'm seeing this trend where I choose these tedious ways to create fun art. First the pom poms that took hours to cut circles and glue, then the subway sign where each letter needed to be individually cut out. Now, I'm cutting 2 inch pieces of tape one by one and sticking dozens on a canvas. I think sometimes I like doing monotonous, detailed work that doesn't entail a ton of thought. Luckily this time I have a fairly small canvas to work with and it really didn't take a lot of time to do. 

The tricky part for me was that my painter's tape didn't want to stay down. I'm not sure if I would have had better luck had I used Frog or masking tape, but at the time I only had blue and it was crucial that the tape be only 1" thick. 

To solve this problem, I used the same trick I did when making my subway sign and needed to reinforce the letters to the canvas. I flipped the canvas over and used heavy cookbooks to weigh down the canvas against the painter's tape.

You can see in the above pictures that I also put a strip of tape on the back of the canvas to hold down all the ends of the tape that wrapped around from the front. 

Once the books were set I let them weigh down the canvas over night. If you don't want to wait until the next day, I would suggest at least waiting a few hours to make sure the tape is pressed firmly onto the canvas.

Once the tape is set, the fun can begin when you start to paint. I chose the same color pattern as the bag I found on Etsy, but obviously you can use any selection and order of colors you like.

I lucked out that I had almost all of the exact (or at least pretty darn close to) colors that were used in the inspiration photo. The only color that didn't match was the light tan, which I recreated with a taupey-grey paint I already owned mixed with a little bit of white. When painting between the stripes you want to be careful to avoid the paint bleeding under the tape. I chose to use more of a dabbing/blotting method to apply the paint, or at least the first coat. It took about three total coats to get the deep color I wanted.

Once the paint dries, you simply peel the tape and your canvas is good to go.

This blog wouldn't be 100% true if I didn't let you all know that once the tape was peeled my canvas wasn't perfect. There were a few spots where the paint bled through the tape (looking back, masking tape would have been a better option to use) and there were also still pencil marks since I made the mistake of drawing my lines a bit too dark. 

I simply used some white paint and filled in the spots between the chevron stripes.

I'm actually glad that I did this anyway because it helped make the white stripes between each color bolder and brighter than the white of the bare canvas.

For now, the canvas is resting on the ledge that is on the wall above our bed. I may end up relocating it. I love how the colors of the stripes match the black ledge and vintage gold mirror already above the bed.

Of course you don't have to just do this on canvas. You can use this chevron pattern on anything you want to paint: a wall or rug, or embellish something small like a mug or plain white dishes (decorative, of course).

Happy Friday and Happy Crafting!

Have any great DIY plans this weekend?