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Decor & DIY

How to Write on Canvas Tutorial

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Writing on Canvas is not as difficult as I once thought. As I was decorating our baby’s room I wanted to do some DIY canvas art for his wall. I searched over the web to find some ideas of how to write on canvas and came across a post using vinyl but I do not remember the post link now. But when my search for vinyl letters failed, I set aside the idea and did some other wall art. I am guessing I should have tried Hobby Lobby or stores of that sort for the vinyl. 

But I had some left over canvas sitting in storage and wanted to do something with them. And the idea of creating a sign just would not go away. Then I remembered that the kids had some craft letters that I could use instead of the vinyl. I decide to use them to create a beach sign for some decorations I was doing.  

How to write on canvas - beach sign

Despite a few imperfections, I truly think it turned out really well for first time. If you do not know how to write on canvas, let me show you.

Relax sign

First, decide what you want to create. What theme do you want? What words do you want to write? How large do you want the letters? What color do you want the words in? What color do you want the rest of the canvas in? (Pick your colors around your theme) How large do you want the piece? Once you have these things in mind, you can then gather the materials:

  • A piece of canvas 
  • Vinyl, foam, or even scrapbook letters (letters that stick but could easily peel off)
  • Paint colors (at least two or more)
  • Paint brushes (various sizes)
  • Paint pallet or small bowls or something to hold paint
  • A ruler and a pencil

I wanted a beach team so I chose blue and white colors (see them down below).

The piece of white canvas I had was sized to 8 x 10. I had painted it brown for an attempted art and wrote a word on it (you can see the word if you look closely). I decided to trash that project and repaint the canvas white for this new project.

Blank canvas

First: PAINT – Paint your canvas the color you want your words to show up in. Let it dry fully.

Note: If you are going to do white, you may not need to paint if you buy white canvas. Most of them are white but I have seen some black ones, too. 

Blank canvas and letters

Second: MEASURE – Measure your letters. How far down do you want them from the top and bottom of the canvas. I wanted my letters in the middle so I measured about 4 inches from the top and bottom to the point where I wanted to write the letters. Then measure the space from the sides. How far in do you want the first and last letters? Keep that in mind. Also, measure the space in between the letters. You want it to be nice and sort of even, as much as you can. 

Note: I only wanted one word so I measured 4 inches both top and bottom to where I wanted the words. If you are doing many words, just be sure to measure evenly between lines and from top and bottom spacing. It does not have to be 4 inches down or up it could be 1 inch.

measurement

Third: ADD LETTERS – Once measuring is done, place the letters on the canvas. My letters claim to be sticky but I find the opposite. For whatever reason, they came with a glue that seemed all dried out to me. But I lightly added some other glue to the back of them to get them to stick (very lightly so they would not adhere firmly and that they would not leave any reside).

Note: If you use vinyl or scrapbook letters glue would not be necessary.

relax letters

Fourth: PAINT – Paint the canvas. I mixed two colors here to get my look.

paint colors

start painting

Paint over the letters, too. 

fully painted

Add more paint until you get the desired look. 

light blue tint

Fifth: REMOVE LETTERS – Slowly and carefully remove the letters. I did not let the paint dry before removing the letters.  Don’t worry about the imperfections; they are an easy fix.

words removed

Sixth: REFINE – This is where you need a smaller size brush (one of mine was a 1/4 inch). My blue paint smeared some into white letters so I used a very small thin brush to fix.  I carefully added white paint to the blue areas on the words. It took me a couple small coats to get rid of the blue on the letters. 

Tip: I found it easier to add a first coat of white (no smoothing out yet or else it will create an even greater problem and the blue will go all over the letters). After the first coat on the spot was dried, I repeated the steps until the blue was no longer visible. At the last coat it can be smoothed out to look even. Allow it to dry fully.

refine

refine again

Keep smoothing things out until you are satisfied.

Relax almost finished

Although mine this has a couple rough patches, I decided to leave it this way. Like they say, “it does not have to be perfect to be beautiful!”

Beach canvas sign

It made a lovely piece of beach decor that could be used anywhere in the home. So RELAXING!

Relax Sign Beach

What do you think of this tutorial? Have you ever tried writing on canvas before? I would love to know your thoughts in the comments!

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10 thoughts on “How to Write on Canvas Tutorial

  1. Ok, so now I’d really like to do this! My hubby is the artistic one in our house. I’m going to have to show this to him so he will be inspired too! Love it!

  2. What a great beach sign! I need to do this because you make it look so easy. I love the color paint you used, too. This is my kind of craft since I could never do it by hand. ๐Ÿ™‚

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