Guest Canvas, Go!

As many a procrastinator can confirm, the pile of half-finished projects can grow rather quickly. Though spending time on a project already fully formulated in my mind held zero excitement, I trenched through and moved our "guest book" to project close out.

First, some supplies. White cardstock and some pretty red yuzen paper will do for a backing.

After cutting up the supplies...

I glued the papers to the back of the canvas, with spray glue. While the glue worked extremely well for adhering the thin paper, I got a little sloppy with the application, and ended up spraying half my yoga mat in the sticky goop! If anyone know how I can easily get the sticky off, please let me know!

Then I put the dried canvas on the easel (this is an unpainted one we didn't take to Hawaii), and added a little sign!

Each table will have one canvas, and 2 brush pens, one black and one red. I followed everyone's advice and added some drawing suggestions onto the back! Hopefully guests can find one or two flowers that are not too complicated!

(The flowers came from a combination of dingbat fonts and sakura brushes from here and here. )

All in all, it is nice to finally finish a project that's been sitting around for so long. Now I can box it up and make room for something else!

Do you have any projects that you've started long ago, but haven't had the energy/time/desire to finish?

Easels Get A Paint Job

While perusing Daiso one day, I happened upon a guestbook epiphany. What if we had mini easels with canvas you could paint and sign the back of?

One per table?

Well, Sak and I found our 20 easels, courtesy of every bay area Daiso there is. Only problem? They were white easels, not black like what I had in mind.


Time to break out the acrylic paint!

Two coats needed...

...And we're set!
Now they're ready to be taken over to Hawaii with us and put into Sak's family storage unit.

The stands were simple enough, but the concept is still causing me a bit of trouble. Let me ask you for help defining the best way to make this idea work. First, I'll be putting a backing onto the 4x6" canvases so that people can "sign the guestbook". I eventually want to hang up the 20 or so painted red & black pieces in a collage/mural in my home. They'll paint with brush pens, not actual messy paint.

Now, what kind of mural?

Should I outline one overall large image, and have each table "color in" appropriately, to piece it together at the end like this:

(source)

Or should a sample of what they should draw on a tag, and get everyone's interpretation of a similar image like this:

(source)

Or should I give them a free-for-all, and let them draw whatever it is they want? (Oh, I foresee the abstract art scribble!)

(source)

How much artistic freedom would you like as a guest? Or would you rather just sign the back and leave the scribbles and coloring to someone else? Are you having any off-the-wall logistics problems with your guestbook?