Faux Chalkboard Art: A Tutorial

Yesterday the kids were napping, the hubs was shopping and the house was quiet. I took advantage of the silence and supplies I had on hand and whipped up two 12x12 canvases for our living room.

I wanted the first 12x12 to be a photo display. I gave it one coat of metallic acrylic paint. I wanted the canvas to have a white washed look so I didn't use much paint. While the paint was drying, I cut down a large family photo print to 11x11 using my quilting mat. I glued the print to the canvas using mod podge and gave the whole piece a thin coat. I love us reppin' our teams in this photo. Every time Cam looks at it he says, "Wook, Cam-men wearing football sherrt!"

The inspiration for the second canvas came from free fonts on Pinterest and a bible verse I saw on this blog.

found here

I like chalkboard art and my first thought was to use chalkboard paint and a chalk pen to make my second canvas.  But I didn't have those supplies available and I couldn't leave my sleeping children home alone to go to the craft store, so I improvised.  Here is my tutorial for making faux chalkboard art.

1.  Using a foam brush, paint your canvas with one light coat of black paint.  I wanted the look to be a bit streaky like a used chalkboard.  I painted mine with some left over Behr semi gloss that I had, but any acrylic or craft paint will do.  If you have chalkboard paint, by all means use it!  I just didn't have any and couldn't make a store run.

2.  Choose your fonts and find the words, phrase, or saying you want to use.  I picked the arsenale white, simon script, indy pimp, and return to sender font. Open your computer's document program and type your words.  I used the bible verse "most of all let love guide your life".  I played with the font types and sizes until I came up with the look I wanted.

3.  Print out the document and trim down the words.  Arrange them on your canvas.  Trim them down further if you need to make them fit, but do NOT cut directly on the lines of any of the letters.

3.  Use double stick tape to lightly affix your papers to the canvas.  Using an exacto knife, carefully trace each letter pressing enough to leave a trace line on your canvas.  You may have to practice this a bit until you get the feel of how hard you will need to press.  It took me a few tries.  I traced and painted one word at a time.



4.  Using whatever white paint you have (I used white acrylic paint, but I think most white paints would work) and a artist brush or your kid's watercolor set brush, start painting over the traced lines.  Keep in mind, this is meant to look like chalkboard art and doesn't have to be perfect!  Do your best to capture the look of the font, but don't worry if your lines aren't ramrod straight.  If the paints a little thinner or thicker in some parts that's okay too!

5.  Stand back and admire your work.

The possibilities for this tutorial are endless.  Happy crafting my friends!  If you have any questions leave them in the comments.