DIY Superhero Comic Canvas

Little boys are just Superheroes in disguise!

-I know mine are! Jack Jordan has been obsessed with Superheroes since he was around 2 yrs old. He really thought he was a superhero! This kid has all the capes, masks, & gadgets. Checkout this adorable photo that his Auntie Chelsie took of him back when it all began... He was definitely the real deal!

I'm gonna let you in on a little secret... Are you ready... I'm not as creative as you might think :)

I wish I could say Im naturally an artistic gal but Im not! I just find all my ideas on pinterest or google images and attempt them. I love me some google images! Of course i only post the decent outcomes but trust me there are plenty of epic failures!

So back in October when we bought our home Jack Jordan was so excited to be getting his own room. He requested a Superhero room. I came across this awesome Comic Superhero Nursery -it was hardcore! And they had the canvas's on the wall -I found them on sale online for around $35 each, but since I wanted 6 Superheroes it was going to be pretty pricey. Soooo the DIY-er in me thought I could try to paint my own!

I took my happy booty on over to Hobby Lobby (obsessed with that place) and bought 6 canvases for $7.99 each. Not bad at all! When I got home I pulled the photos up on my computer and attempted to free hand the first character Batman (Jack Jordan chose his top 6 fav characters). This is when I realized two thing: 1) I highly overestimated my drawing skills and 2) this project was not going to be as easy as i thought! Part of me wanted to return the canvases and just save to buy the already made ones, and the other half cheered myself on and thought "you can do it!!! Plus it would mean a lot more to lil Jack knowing it was made with love by his mama!" -Not now because he's only 5 yrs old but someday when he's older he'll appreciate it! :) I knew I couldn't give up that easy. So I googled how to trace a photo onto a canvas and WHALAAAA there was SECRET behind my paintings!

The tutorial i found said I needed tracing paper and graphite paper so I got those at Michaels. I printed the characters to fit a 12x12 canvas and traced each character onto a tracing paper. Then you take a piece of this amazing invention called graphite paper and you place it in between your tracing paper and the canvas and simply retrace your photo and it transfers it onto the canvas! Yes its that easy!!! Whats awesome is that you can even erase it from the canvas if you have a slip up! Graphite paper where the heck have you been all my life!!!?! It's the best thing ever created for us artistically challenged peeps! Now it was time for painting...

I don't know anything about painting! The only thing I've painted were with school supplies back in art class and with food coloring when I made cakes in the bakery. I had no clue what kind I needed Acrylic or Oil paints? Ugh!!! Then I nearly had a heart attack to find that they were nearly $10 for a tiny tube of one stinkin color (and I needed like 8 colors) at Michaels. I realized I was in the Professional section so I ran to go find the cheaper paints. I came across a pack of 6 colors that were only $3.99 and I read washable... I was sold! That was the worst investment that I made! It turned out that the fine print on the back said WATERCOLORS!!! The paint was way too thin and took me 5-6 coats to get a solid color. This is what slowed me down! I went back to Michaels and found bottles of Acrylic paint for only .69 cents! Can you say AWESOME! So I got the rest of my colors that I needed and it's crazy the difference in quality! The left side of batman a face is painted with one layer of Acrylic paint and the right side is 4 layers of the cheap Washable paint...

As you can see below in the wolverine picture, I painted all the colors in before I filled in the black outlines.

I tried to paint the outlines and that was a total failure! I don't have a steady hand -that explains why my eyeliner is never even! I feel like I cheated because I used a sharpie marker for the outlines! See I told you that I'm not that talented! I was desperate at this point -but after googling I found out that Sharpies are an art form and some people use only those on canvases -so that made me feel better!

After the paint dried I sprayed the canvases with a clear satin finish sealant from Michaels.

So there it is folks all my tricks of how to paint your own canvases! Just remember to buy the smoother types of canvas, the real Acrylic paints, and enough sharpie markers!

As much as I love to hear your sweet comments saying that I'm a Jack of all trades or the next Martha Stewart (I wish!) I gotta keep it real with you guys and share how I did it because if I can do it then anyone can!

Today I hung them in Jacks room... I cut 6 - 12x12 squares from wrapping paper and turned my canvases over and punched a whole where I wanted to nails to go. Then I taped them onto wall and adjusted them to where I wanted the paintings to go.

Hammer the nails in the holes that you prepunched. And remove the papers...

Hang them and WHALAAAAA your done! I did this for my collage in the hallway and it makes your life easier! Saves you from having a million holes in your walls! Note: don't hang the photos while hammering because they will fall and break -I learned the hard way! Whomp! Whomp

-please excuse the crappy cell phone pics :) ill post more photos of his whole room when it's complete or clean -whichever comes first lol!

Ill leave you with this photo of my Mighty Maxx -Superhero in training!