Trick to painting on raw canvas book cover

Hello everyone! I am Jaine Drake and I want to share me newest project with you.
I will also show you an easy trick that made it so much easier than if I had to do it freehand.
I love sewing and I love painting and bringing the two together is just so much fun. It takes mixed media to a whole new level. Canvas Corp Brands raw canvas material or ready made canvas items are crying out for some personalizing and fun mixed media treatment.

I had a piece of raw canvas and turned it into a small notebook cover to hold my agenda and notebooks on the go but it could equally be a tote bag or apron or indeed any of the raw canvas accessories found in the shop.

Materials used:
Canvas Corp Canvas Journal Cover (if you don’t feel like sewing one yourself)
Tattered Angels High Impact Paint – White and Navy Blue
Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists – Cross My Heart, Golden Orange, Sapphire
Tattered Angels Baseboard Paints – Sunburst, Leaf
Tattered Angels Simply Sheer – Birthday Party
White tissue paper
Row of Houses stamp by Jaine Drake for Basement Studio
Fabric washi tape, elastic

A coat of gesso before painting not only stops the paint from seeping into the fabric it also makes the canvas base stiffer which is perfect if you want to create a book or intend to use a lot of wet media on the surface.
Protect any areas you don’t want to paint with paper or masking tape.

If you want to stamp on canvas often it’s difficult to get a nice crisp image.
One way to overcome this is to stamp with a waterproof ink like Versafine or Stazon onto tissue paper.

For my continuous houses I stamped several times onto the tissue, cut them out then adhered them to the canvas with gel medium. You need to be quite delicate with the wet tissue as it will tear easily.
I spread some gel medium onto the canvas first then delicately place the tissue paper image down and use a wide soft brush to smooth it down.

Once the gel medium on the tissue paper is dry you can start painting. I painted my background with the two colours of High Impact paint blending them together as I went.
Without the gesso base, this would be almost impossible to do on raw canvas so this is where the gesso really helps.

If the colour is too dark for your liking use more gesso to neutralize it a bit.

To colour my houses, I used various spray mists and applied them with a paint brush like watercolour paints.
Any areas which needed touching up, I used a waterproof liner pen. I also added some shading with a black pencil.
To protect my work, I gave the front and thin coat of gel medium applying it with an old store card.

If the edges of your canvas become sharp as the threads are stiff with paint and glue, protect them by either sewing bias tape on or fabric washi tape as I did.

So this is how a plain raw canvas book cover changed into a totally personalised and colorful piece of art that will hold my daily notes. Cool, right?

I hope you’ll try my trick too! Happy crafting!

– Jaine –
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