Meet Origami The Cat

The original Origami the Cat painting
Original 3 x 3 " Cat Painting
Origami started out (and is shown here) as a mini painting  (about 3 x 3″) that I did several years ago during a short time of selling paintings on eBay. I cannot remember if he was sold, but I found the scan in my computer archives, so I decided to adapt his character to needlepoint canvas.

Origami the Cat Painted Needlepoint Canvas
Origami the Cat Painted Needlepoint Canvas
The new Origami the Cat is 8 x 8 inches square on 18 mesh canvas and is scheduled to be my personal painted canvas goal for 2009. I’ve painted a sample canvas to practice with the colors and check out how well the 18 mesh holds detail.
The background is divided into a grid and is painted roughly, but good enough for using open stitch techniques. I plan to let the background paint play a role in bringing color effects to the finished piece.

His black on black body parts are separated by a white line. This is just a visual separation and I will have to figure how I can achieve this with stitch changes, thread changes, and / or some overstitching.

Today, I photographed the painted canvas and put Origami through some Photoshop gymnastics. A much loftier challenge emerged: A Four-Way Origami.

Four_Way Origami - Imaginary Painted Canvas
Four_Way Origami – Imaginary Painted Canvas

I’ve calculated this would  finish as a 16 x16 inch panel, so I need at least 20 x 20 inches of canvas – without any borders. To be safe, I think 24 x 24 inches of canvas would be better. That is HUGE for me; I rarely mount a canvas bigger than 18 inches in any direction. Since this is just an imaginary canvas, I need to get organized before I paint the real thing. It will be awhile before the next progress report.
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Origami the Cat has a character story. Read below.

 
Origami is a playful tuxedo cat who spends all of his time outside. The coal black fur that covers his body functions as the ultimate solar collector. After a long lazy nap in the sun, Origami is fueled for some serious mischief and games that quench his thristy curiosity. As for his daily work, he is about like any other cat: sleep, eat, sleep, play, sleep, beg.

He was not always called Origami. The tip of Orgami’s tail is white, so his original name is “Tippy”. A mishap, prompted the name change. Of the nine lives that Origami was issued, I’m not certain which one he is living now, but I am positive it is one less. The mishap is a mystery, and may or may not have cost have him a life, but with great certainty, I feel it scared one out of him. It resulted in three good days of cyclone kitty going into slow motion and some bruises to his vanity.

I really doubt that Origami spent much time thinking about his rear appendage before the mishap. For most cats those thoughts vaporize sometime after kittenhood. But now, Origami is constantly reminded of the useless thing called a tail. Literally, the mishap proved to be a real drag. Poor Origami, now has a tail that drags behind him like a pestering shadow, and it bends in three places. Some days you can see on his face how frustrated and bemused he gets. He must be asking, “Why does this thing keep following me?” He performs the daily ritual grooming, and works hard to keep his, less than graceful accessory, in check. Of course, he has dreamy moments when he forgets his floppy foe, and naps quietly, peacefully, gently resting his chin on his snow white paws.

Generally, I believe Origami is a happy cat today. He runs up trees, hides in tall grass, rolls in dirt patches, and has trained his provider to supply food on a regular basis. He may even be rekindling a friendship with his tail. The other day I watched while Origami was intensely spying a grasshopper. His back legs were stepping up and down, and the last tip of his tail wisking back and forth. It seemed like teamwork again.

Painting Lavender Glitter Canvas – Part 2

With your paint mixed to the consistency of whole milk. It is now time to apply it to the canvas.
Refer to  “Painting Lavender Glitter Canvas – Part 1” if you missed it.

Lesson #2 Application to the canvas

First, lay your plain white canvas and spray it with a fine mist of water. Turn it over and spray the back side too.
Spray just enough to feel the canvas go limp. This will help break the sizing and allow the paint to penetrate between the fibers of  the canvas threads a bit better.

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Note 3: Painting the canvas is just a “coating”, the fibers of the canvas threads are not going to take up the paint like in a dyeing process. This sort of paint wash is very permanent, but not completely penetrating. If you plan to do pulled thread stitches, there will be tiny white dots that reveal themselves when the canvas threads are distorted.

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Chip brush, canvas and paint

Use a wide, stiff bristle painters brush to  paint the wash on the canvas. Load the brush half way with paint, and allow the excess to drip back into the container by dragging the brush across the edge.

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Apply in strokes that are parallel to each other, and overlapping slightly. Rotate your canvas, and apply a layer of cross strokes. Repeat this one more time and the canvas should be close to covered.

Apply first set of parallel strokes

Apply second layer of strokes crosswise to the first layer

If there are any areas that look a bit thin, apply small amounts of paint and “scrub” the canvas with the brush in an upright position. This will also help dislodge some of the paint tension that may develop in the canvas holes.

Once the surface of the canvas looks even, turn the canvas over to the backside and blot with the terry cloth towel to remove the final excess paint.

Blot the backside of the canvas

Hold the canvas up and check for filled holes. There should be very few, but if there are some, try blowing through the canvas to break them.

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Side Note: When I mixed the paint for this sample canvas, I did not mix enough. I decided to add a second set of paint layers to strengthen the color. Notice the application of a darker color value below.  Just for the heck of it, I left some of the striations on the finished canvas.

Additional color added

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Final Steps:
Let the canvas dry. Iron with a dedicated craft iron (not your good one) on the cotton setting. Iron both the back and the front of the painted canvas allowing for a 3-second hold before moving to the next spot.

Congratulations – Custom colored canvas awaits your imagination!

Painting Lavender Glitter Canvas – Part 1

As I prepared my canvas for the CyberPointers Stitch-A-Long (SAL)  –  Midnight Garden  project, I took a few pictures to share with you. This is a tutorial for painting a canvas with a tint or wash of color. It is an excellent way to distinguish, and customize your project when you use stitches that intentionally expose the canvas threads.

The process is not difficult, and not very expensive if you already have some acrylic paint supplies on hand. The results will be quite suitable for most projects, and mistakes can be used for projects that fully cover the canvas with stitches. For certain specific designs, I personally use an airbrush to achieve more controlled color transitions or stenciled edges. And for detail work, I would hand render the illustration on canvas. 

Setup and Supplies Needed:

  • A protected work surface
  • Cut canvas piece (edges do not need to be finished)
  • Paint mixing surface – styrofoam meat tray, old plate; something that has upturned edges, but is essentially flat
  • Spray bottle with water
  • Wide mouth container
  • Mixing knife or palette knife – should be the flexible style
  • Applicators (one or more of these) : a “chip” brush – inexpensive about 1 – 2 inches wide, piece of cellulose sponge, scrap of terry washcloth
  • Acrylic paints in squeeze bottles or tubes – smooth consistency paints are easier to mix properly, avoid the full body acrylics
  • Acrylic mediums – choose one  from: a liquid gel medium, textile medium, or “flow” medium
  • Glitter additive
  • Plain water and clean up supplies

Now, lets get started . . . 

Lesson #1   Mix Your Paint and Medium  

Paint, gel medium and pearl-x powder

Above you see a squeeze of paint, a puddle of gel medium (with sparkle glitter already mixed in) and a dollop of Pearl-X powder. The mixture needs at least equal parts paint and gel, but sometimes the less costly paints have less pigment, so more paint may be necessary.

I added the Pearl-X powder as an effect.

The result: absolutely NO effect at all.

On the other hand, the glitter gel was exactly the thing to make sparkles galore.

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Note 1: This glitter gel was on sale, normally I would have used plain liquid gel or textile medium and added glitter sparkles directly into the mixture.

Note 2: The amount of paint mixed was not enough to cover my 10 x 10 inch canvas to my satisfaction.  As you will see in Part 2 of the tutorial, I mixed some additional paint to finish the job. Be sure to mix enough paint especially if mixing two or more paint colors to get the hue you want. It is hard to get an exact match the second time around.

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Mix the ingredients with the palette knife. Use a sideways motion to scoop the mix together, then flatten the blade of the knife on top of the pile to squeeze it. Repeat the scoop and flatten method until it is very consistent in color and texture.    

Mix with scoop and flatten method

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So far, we have not added any water to the mix, but now is the time to begin to loosen it with water. Use the spray mister, set on fine mist, to add water. Give one spritz  at a time and then mix with the palette knife. Our first target consistency is like very heavy cream.

 Add water using a spray mister 

Mix to the consistency of heavy cream

The consistency shown above is well mixed with no trace of paint flecks, and can be tested by looking for a solid, thin stream of paint coming off the palette knife.
Final Mixing Step:
One more addition of water is need to thin the consistency to a  milk-like thickness – that would be whole milk, not low fat.
If your mixing palette is too shallow, now is the time to pour the paint into the wide mouth container, and add a little water at a time.

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Proceed to part 2 . . .