Merry Christmas, Freebie Lovers!
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, even if you’re not American. I had the typical giant meal with family and worked on this post : )
I quite enjoyed designing and drawing this set up in Illustrator. I envisioned it as a painting, so I used them to create masks and stencils on a set of canvas panels. This did not go as well as my first experiment with my Cameo and painted canvases. That was far too easy, and it set me up for disaster.
In case anyone else fancies painting up this set I will tell you the lessons that I’ve learned from the experience.
Do not use satin-finish acrylic paints to Paint Vinyl Paint Peel. Your results may vary, and if it works out for you that is great, but for me I threw out at least four canvases due to difficulties with satin-finish acrylics. When I would go to peel up the vinyl protecting my under color, it would peel up anything under or over a satin finish paint. The best part? I never wanted satin finish in the first place! I even complained thoroughly that I couldn’t find any mattes in stock around town in dark grey before I started painting. Eventually I found a dark grey in stock at Michaels.
Do not use metallic-finish acrylic paints to Paint Vinyl Paint Peel. This was another cause for throwing away canvases. This paint also stuck, somehow, to every other layer of paint and peeled it up in a nasty sheet.
How to solve this issue? Use a stencil method to use satin or metallic finish paints. This is how I managed to get my deer in gold. I also stenciled the ‘Merry Christmas’ atop the dry gold after removing the stencil for the gold painted deer. The Merry Christmas is in matte white, but putting the mask under the gold meant peeling the gold up, which also peeled up the stripes and made me furious. This lettering was super delicate, so be careful if you go this route! I used a makeup sponge to dab it on.
Whew!
They were a lot of work, and my photos of them are uploading highly compressed for some reason, but my paintings are almost what I dreamed of them being, and they were ready just in time for my Christmas décor to go up.
Fortunately, I still love painting this way. I can’t wait to try out a few more methods that I’m interested in.
These designs are versatile, though, so if PVPP isn’t something you’re into, feel free to use them for prints, cards, mugs- whatever!
Download: DeerMerryChristmasOnStripes.studio3
Download: DovePeaceOnStripes.studio3
Download: OrnamentsOnStripes.studio3
or…
Download: DeerDoveOrnaments.zip
Each file is provided for personal use only and is not to be redistributed without express permission from Echo S., Echoia.com & EchoStenger.com.
If you would like to use these designs commercially, please visit my brand-new Etsy shop! EchoiaDesign on Etsy. It isn’t ‘officially’ open, but there are a few items there while I continue to build and work on it : )
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via Facebook or Twitter.
Have a Silhouettey Sunday : )
