altered canvas clock - for scooters birthday.

I got a text message at around 2pm saturday arvo "Hey P, don't forget dinner tonight 7pm for Scooters birthday"
Oops Too late, I had forgotten already.
No dramas - I had no set plans, so dinner was fine. Only one problem, No gift for the birthday girl.
Panic stations!! What to get / make her in a couple of hours?!!.

Solution: one home made altered canvas clock. =>

I whipped this up in less than an hour - And that is including drying time! In fact, with the aid of the heat gun id say it actually took me about 30 mins.

Heres how i did it:

Stuff:
- 30x20
- 1 small foam brush
- acrylic paint, raw sienna (jo sonjas) + paper bag beige color (making memories)
- heat gun or hair dryer (i used both)
- Black sharpie (permanent marker)
- clock bits. i bought 10 movements and hands kits off ebay for $50AUD about 7 months ago which was a pretty good bargain for these parts. But you can get them from any hobby store.
- aa battery

Method

• Dig up that canvas frame that you have had lying around
• Base coat: Applied 3 coats of the beige to the entire surface of the canvas and the sides with the foam brush
• Dried with a hair dryer between coats (i dunno if this is recommended but i was pressed for time)
• The big square: Again with the foam brush i painted a rough big square shape with the sienna color and dried it with the hair dryer. I did this three or four times until the colour was nice and even. (somehow the square got a bit bigger with each coat lol :) note. i couldn't do a perfect square even if i wanted to, so i just went for a squarish shape.
• The little square. I didn't have any other colours to match the beige and sienna so i just mixed the two together until i got a different hue and painted a little square with the foam brush. Again 3 coats for nice colour.
• Finishing Touches: Finally once it was all nice and dry I grabbed the sharpie and drew around the edges of the two squares. I didn't worry about getting it perfect. I just made sure that i covered all the bits where you could see through the paint to the background so the line is thicker in some parts than others.
• Clock bits: So now the technical part. I punched a hole in the centre of the big square for the shaft of the clock movement. then i just assembled the mechanism as per the instructions.
  
• All done!!

I would like to have sealed it with either a couple of coats of modge podge before assembling the clock bits but i didn't have time. I did have some spray on matt varnish but it takes a little while for the smell to go away and i didn't want everyone at dinner getting high off the clock... hehe.

I also would have liked to go over the sharpie lines with gloss accents for an embossed looking line.

All in all it worked out ok i reckon!

i have ore hints and tips to making your own canvas clock here.

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