Santa is Coming!

In my last post, I showed a picture of my Santa collection and this  new addition to the crew.  Within a few hours my sister was calling me and asking the who, what and how of this canvas.

So here you go… 

Usually we have another painting that I made to go there in order to cover up the cable and electrical outlets that are mounted on the wall.  Here is a picture from 2012 where you can see it up there {and look how cute and sweet Jackson was then}

Please allow me to rant….Who puts a cable and electrical outlet over seven feet off the ground and does not even center it?  Who puts something like that in a cinderblock wall that would require a really crazy TV mount situation…to be mounted there (not centered) and then decide that an entertainment center is just easier to figure out? 

Someone who cares nothing for my state of mind, that’s who!  Yeah let’s just leave it there and call it a day!

So for a few years I’ve had it covered up.  This year I changed some of my Christmas decorations  and decided to put the Santas there and have the nativity down where the boys can see it better.  So the usual canvas looks awful with the Santas and of course like any perfectly sane person I knew I had to create a new canvas to cover the outlets.

Yes, I am very good at making extra work for myself.  So I Googled “Santa picture” and finally came to one that I liked and I thought I could execute. 

It turns out that Pottery Barn had something similar (for $250) a few years ago and it had been copied all over the internet.  So I printed out a copy and set up a grid on my canvas and got to work.

I lightened this one so you can see it better.

It is pretty simple if you just put a grid on your paper and then do a little math to find out the grid on your canvas.  After that is done you just draw each square exactly as it looks in the original.

Then you just get to coloring.  I used a silver Sharpie.  I have an extensive collection of Sharpies and I’m not afraid to admit it!

{I decided to do this before my Christmas decorations were really finished and there were still boxes in the Dining room.  I have no idea why I needed to get this done so desperately….}

I got about half way through when my marker died.  I had another one, but when I opened it, the new one was dried up.   Womp, womp womp!  So the next day I trotted myself all the way across the island to get another silver Sharpie.  It turned out that they didn’t have the same one as I had before.  Why would they?  That would be way too easy. 

They did have a silver paint pen.  I love paint pens.  Well I did when I was 12, which is also when I loved White Out so much I painted my lampshade in my bedroom with White Out…so yeah, I love paint pens.

Bada bing bada boom!

The paint pen has a different sheen on the canvas and it irks me some to look at it and see two different shades of silver on there.  But sometimes you just have to call it done and move on…

There is always next year to improve it and make it even better!  I’m thinking glitter!

Oh and I’d be lying if I didn’t show you this.  It turns out that this canvas is just a bitty bit smaller than the one I usually have up there.  So the outlets show.  Let’s take a moment to mourn for my precarious mental health…

I’m looking for an easel to put it on…. maybe one I can have to fix up and make more work for myself.