Leanna's Retro-ish Art

Neon colors...they're baaaaaaackkkkk!  I remember being in middle school when neon, was neon.  My bright orange shorts and hyper-color t-shirts got a lot of use.  Well, not surprising, the colors are circulating again and now they will make an appearance on my niece Leanna's bedroom walls.

Murphy and I love having my nieces and nephew sleepover and we love to have something to create or work on.  Leanna chose her inspiration picture from Pinterest and gathered the paint. 

Inspiration Picture from ReadyMade

The color in the inspiration picture was just a little too tame for a teen heading into high school...so bring on the neon orange, neon pink, green, and blue!

Supplies:

• Paint (one color, two colors, or four)
• Canvas (prepped for paint)
• Painters Tape
• Paintbrushes

Now, let's create Retro-ish Art:

1. The day before you wanted to create the paintings, make sure you prepped the canvas. Now you can purchase prep. paint, but I just use some good old house paint or primer. The main point of this is so that the paint doesn't just soak into the canvas.

2. Tape the pattern using painters tape. Remember to press down the edges...we missed some spots and had a lot of touch-up work to do.

 3.  Leanna wanted the colors to be spread out all over the canvas...and NOT TOUCHING!  Food shouldn't touch and now, paint can't touch either. :0)  Some things never change...and thank goodness for that!

4. Now paint, paint, and paint....at least two coats.  You'll complete a third coat with the touch-ups.

5.  Remove the tape before the final coat is dry.  Waiting until in totally dries leaves a greater chance of having paint removed with the tape.  (I learned that the hard way before. )

 When we peeled back the tape, we had an unpleasant surprise.  Whatever is added to the neon colors, (felt slick and looked shinier compared to the others) made the paint peel.  We had to be really careful around those areas, but it still made it difficult.

6.  Now, sigh, the touch-ups began....a fine brush does a great job for touch-ups.

7. Let dry and continue any touch-ups.  If you're like me, you notice every little spot, but remember, up on the wall, those little things would be noticeable.

~~~Murphy was a trouper through the whole process. He really wanted Leanna to just pay attention to him and take him outside to play.

Thank goodness Leanna loves to play outside...even if it means handling a slimy, ripped up soccer ball.

Ignore the lack of grass. Murphy and his friend love to wrestle here!

Talk to my dog, and he'll be scared of you...Play with my dog and he'll be your best friend.  More on that later.
:0)