Evan's Room - Eric Carle Art

Wow, I am really behind on this posting thing! I finished Evan's room over a month ago. It looks great. This post, however, will concentrate on the Eric Carle artwork that I mounted to canvas and posted around his room. Here are pictures of the finished artwork:

10 Little Rubber Ducks

1, 2, 3 to the Zoo

I'm not sure which book this one's from. Maybe 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo?

I'm guessing this one is from Panda Bear, Panda Bear What Do You See?

Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

1, 2, 3 to the Zoo

So this project is REALLY easy! Yeah! I more or less followed the tutorial found on this blog:
http://thesassypepper.blogspot.ca/2010/03/tutorial-mod-podge-canvas.html

I had to make a few adjustments because mine wasn't working out exactly like hers. I will explain more as I go through the process below.

First, I purchased the Eric Carle prints from Amazon here. If the link doesn't work, search for "Eric Carle Decorative Prints." It comes with twelve 12x16" prints on heavy paper for $16 and some change. What a deal!

The next step is to buy some canvas and paints. I decided to make 7 of them, so I purchased 7 12x16" canvases from JoAnn. These are typically on sale at JoAnn for 40% off, which makes them about $6. They sometimes will have a coupon that works on sale items too (sometimes for even 25% off). It's best to buy them then if you can. I know Michael's sells canvas too, but I am not aware of the sizes or the price.

I just purchased several cheap acrylic paints, also from JoAnn. I used a very inexpensive foam brush just like the above-mentioned blogger.

Once I had gathered all my materials, I decided what paint I wanted to use for my first print. Then, I painted the edges just like the aforementioned blogger shows in Step 1. Here is a pic of the finished painted edges for the Hungry Caterpillar print:

I tried to get a little creative with the edges. For the Hungry Caterpillar print, I only used 1 coat of paint to give it a streaked look similar to Eric Carle's drawing.

For the lion print, I first painting the edge red. Then I let it dry and painted yellow on top of it. I didn't get a work-in-progress picture of that, but here is a finished picture of the edges of the lion print:

For the penguins, I painted blue first, then did a coat of green on top before the blue dried:

For most of the others, I just did 2 coats of a solid color. If you want more color options, don't forget that you can always combine 2 paints to get a cool new color!

The next step was to cut down the prints. For the train print (which I did first) I wanted the print to be flush against the edges. So, I just shaved down a tiny bit since it was slightly going off the edge (they are both about 12x16" but it was still slightly too big). Here is a picture of the final product which shows the flush edge:

For the other prints, I wanted to see a little of the paint from the top of the print, so I cut off more. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal (rulers, cutting mat, etc.) to make the edges as straight as possible while retaining their 90 degree corners.

Now back to the canvas. After the paint on the canvas dried, I used my Mod Podge to glue the print to the canvas as evenly as possible. I simply smoothed a thin layer of Mod Podge on the back of the print and laid it on top. Due to the thickness of the print, the edges started to curl up (not a problem for the original blogger, perhaps her prints weren't as thick). So, after gluing the print to the canvas, I had to put the entire thing face down with books on top to get it to stay down. I laid wax paper down first.

After this dried, I applied a thin layer of Mod Podge on top of the print and canvas. The original blogger didn't mention this, but it is best to do large brush strokes in one direction only (either left to right or up and down). This will give it a more even look. For best results, do this quickly before the Mod Podge starts to dry. I also tried to glob the Mod Podge a little thicker where the edge of the print meets the canvas. This should make it look more like one cohesive piece. I applied Mod Podge down the sides of the canvas as well.

The original blogger mentioned laying the print and canvas combo upside down onto wax paper at this point. I tried this with my first one (the train) and was disappointed with the results. It's a little hard to see from the picture, but the finish wasn't smooth:

See the vertical, jagged edges?

For the remaining prints, I allowed it to dry face up and the finish came out smooth.

After the Mod Podge finish dried, I simply used a staple gun to attach a string to the back:

Well, that's it! I think I just managed to make something very simple seem really complicated once again. :/