Remember those canvases I talked about repurposing? Here’s the (almost) finished product! I obviously still have a few touch ups, but I couldn’t wait to share. I couldn’t find a map or fabric I really liked, so I decided to go with the chevron in a metallic silver. Here’s how you can repurpose your canvases:

1. Cover the original painting in white gesso. More on that later.
2. Create a grid on your canvas by poking evenly distributed holes with a thumbtack. My canvases were 16″ x 20″, so I poked a hole every four inches horizontally and vertically across each canvas. (You could also use Jess’s method of printing a chevron template and poking holes at the peaks. My printer wasn’t working, so I adapted this method from Apartment Therapy.)
3. Connect the dots with painter’s tape. For strips going up, match the bottom left corner and the top right corner to holes in the grid. For strips going down, match the top left corner and the bottom right corner to the holes in the grid.
4. Paint your canvas, allow it to dry, then remove the tape. Touch up if necessary, and admire your handiwork!

A couple tips:

1. Allow the gesso to dry for at least 24 hours between each coat. The girl at Michael’s said it would only take 15 minutes. I waited an hour or two between each of the first three coats, then waited 24 hours for the final coat — waiting longer made a huge difference in coverage.
2. Thin out your paint with some water, especially the gesso. The girl at Michael’s said I could just squirt the paint directly on the canvas and wet my brush to thin it out; however, gesso is very thick and difficult to spread around even with a wet brsh — I ended up having to dump water on the canvas just to spread it around.

Photos by me, last two via Instagram