Materials & Cost:
5″ X 7″ canvas panel ~ $1
(2 – 3) Synthetic Brushes (small-medium) ~ $1 each
(5-10) Craft Acrylic Paint ~ $1 per bottle
Carbon Paper ~ $2
Recycled plastic cup/lid ~ Free
Paint Smock (old t-shirt) ~ Free
Newspaper ~ Free
Start our with a 5″ X 7″ flat canvas panel, found at any local art supply store. These panels can be easily framed in any standard frame. Or if you want to step it up a notch you can purchase wrapped canvas and simply hang on the wall as is. If you are in the Twin Cities area you can give our local canvas builder Champion Canvas some love.

Once you have your supplies; setup a work area on a flat surface, cover with some newspapers to protect your table. You can download the simple heart design we used and trace onto your canvas by laying the print out on top of the carbon paper and using a pen or pencil to draw over the lines. Or just draw your own heart on there. We used a sharpie marker to outline it so that we could clearly see the shape when painting, but this is not necessary.

Wear a paint smock to protect your clothing as acrylic paint dries hard into cloth and will not come out easily. Put your paint into recycled yogurt cups or on lids as a cheap alternative to an artists palette. Pick two colors for your heart design, use bright contrasting colors that will stand out against each other. Fill in your shapes with a medium sized brush with smooth flat brush strokes.

Use a small detail brush to pick a few different colors that are similar to your background colors and fill in in small swirling brush strokes. Fill in your heart with 2-3 different colors or more if you wish. Do the same for the background, mixing colors to create more variety on your plastic lid. Make it colorful and bright with a lot of texture!