Dream Textured Canvas

Dare to dream with this wonderful textured wall art, featuring a glass dragonfly and bright colors spelling out DREAM. Texture can be created with a regular comb. Candace Liccione for Inspired at Home shows us how!
 

Materials:

• Stretched canvas 12 “x 12”
• Texture Magic™ - any color
• Cardboard scrapbooking letters - 2-1/2” tall
• Texture Magic™ Texture Comb or wide tooth hair comb
• Palette knife
• Acrylic paint- black, white, navy blue and colors of choice for lettering
• Aleene’s® Super Thick Tacky Glue™
• Glass dragonfly (or other dragonfly embellishment)
• Blue painters masking tape
• Paint brush – 1/2 “ flat
• Paper towels
• Ruler and pencil
• Hairdryer (optional)

Instructions:

1. Measure and mark with a pencil, a 2-3/4” – 3” strip in the center of the canvas. Place masking tape in this area to mask off.
    
2. Squeeze the Texture Magic into the upper area of the canvas. Starting at the top, spread it onto the canvas with palette knife until evenly covered. Immediately drag the texture comb through the wet Texture Magic creating dimensional ridges. Repeat if needed to finish the top area. Repeat on lower area. Remove tape. Let dry over night.
    
3. Paint the entire canvas with black. Let dry.
    
4. Paint navy blue over the black background, leaving some of the black showing. Let dry.
    
5. Dip brush into white paint and brush onto dry paper towel to remove most of the paint. Then, lightly paint over the canvas to create the dry brush effect. Repeat to dry brush entire canvas.
    
6. To apply dimensional pattern to letters, apply tape tip to glue bottle (see techniques) and draw dash and dot lines down center of letters. Let dry. Paint scrapbook letters desired colors. Let dry. Create a small amount of paint to one shade lighter by adding 1 drop of white acrylic paint to quarter size of letter color. Mix. Dry brush over each letter. Let dry. Apply glue on back of each letter and glue in place. Be sure to evenly space them from each edge. As a final touch, glue a dragonfly onto the canvas. Let glue dry.
    

Candace’s Designer Tip: Whenever you are painting this type of project with acrylic paint, you can speed up the process by using a hair dryer. This really speeds up the painting process. How can you tell if the paint is dry? As you use the hair dryer, you should see the paint turn to a matte finish. Once you see that effect, dry for a minute longer. Let set for a minute. Touch the paint. If it is still cool to the touch, it’s not dry yet so use the hair dryer again.