DIY Chevron Silhouette Nursery Art

More nursery projects! Again inspired by Pinterest/Etsy and made for much less thanks to time at home and the Hobby Lobby 40% off coupon! I made three 12x12 and two 18x24 panels, plus the two things of paint for $20!

What you need:

Watercolor Panels

Painters/Art Tape

Exacto knife

Computer and printer

Non-mechanical Pencil

Embossing Tool (optional)

Paint (~$1/bottle)

Paint brushes

The first thing to do is paint the chevron background. 

The easiest way to tape a chevron pattern is to make a lattice of tape and then remove squares using your exacto like so:

Lattice

How you want to remove the tape (anything the lines cross)

 Which is ^ these ^ squares

Eventually you will have this on the left. 

IF you are doing a lighter background than your silhouette, paint away! If not, wait to paint until you have drawn on your silhouette outline so that you can avoid painting where your silhouettes will be. 

After a few minutes, but preferably while your paint is still tacky, remove the rest of the tape. Tada - chevron!

The next step is to pick your silhouettes. Our nursery has an African/Safari theme so I wanted animals, but also wanted to avoid cartoon-y silhouettes. The nice thing is you can pick whatever you'd like! Google "______ silhouette" and pick your favorite. Make sure you like the orientation (which way it's facing) and print to size. I just used Word, shrunk the margins as far as possible and filled the page. Of course you can always use your own pictures, but I recommend using a picture that is already a silhouette so that you can be sure you aren't going to lose any details you wanted when you convert it. 

The easiest way I've found to transfer the image to your canvas is to flip your print out over and scribble pencil lead around the outside of your silhouette (hold it to a window if you can't see through). Flip your printout back over and place it on your canvas right where you want the silhouette to end up. Tape in place and then trace the outline firmly with either an embossing tool or just a ball point pen. This will transfer a very light pencil line onto your canvas. I increased the contrast on the second picture so you can see how the drawing transfers. Only put pencil on the edges, not the whole page so you have a place to rest your hand without accidentally rubbing on the pencil lines. 

Ready paint! To outline your silhouettes, make sure you're using a fine tipped brush and load it with paint to be able to put down a smooth line (this is also the trick to trimming in ceilings when painting rooms - bonus!). I did two coats on mine to be sure to cover the difference of painting over white vs yellow and that was definitely enough. 

 There you have it, your very own nursery art!
I am going to hang mine as is using 3M hook stickers but you could also add a ribbon to hang it from a nail using hot glue on the back very easily. Enjoy your art!

Update: here's the large panels. I used the same transfer method for the giraffes, elephant and text as I described above.  A post of the completed nursery is coming soon!