Leave it 2 the Imagination: Who doesn't LOVE Dr. Seuss?!

Sometimes it's hard to find good inspirational quotes about reading......but I needed one for this particular canvas.....especially seeing as it's another one that I've made for my library. Who better than Dr. Seuss for a good quote about reading!

So here's the final quote I decided on (courtesy of Dr. Seuss of course!):
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” Perfect, isn't it?

Materials I used for this piece:
-Canvas
-Gesso to prime the canvas
-Parchment paper
-Paint brushes in a variety of sizes
-Acrylic paint in a variety of colours (I did some mixing as well)
-Bucket of water
-Pencil
-Eraser
-Paint brush cleaner (for afterwards)

The Method to my madness:
1. I primed my canvas with gesso and let it dry 24 hours.
2. I sketched my pal the Cat in the Hat on a piece of paper first. Once I was happy with him, I actually put a piece of parchment paper over him and traced him with a sharpie (I knew if I didn't do this I was doomed to mess it up on the canvas....).
3. I flipped the parchment paper over and traced what I had just done with the sharpie (the hard thing to remember that when you go to trace an image you've put on parchment paper and flip it over on the canvas.....is that it will be backwards...that's why I always flip it over and sharpie it on the other side as well....).
4. I put the parchment paper over the canvas (the "backwards way" - aka the last tracing I just did is the side you want down ON the canvas). Then I go over it/trace it on my canvas. I'm a perfectionist which is why I sketched it on paper first and then traced it on parchment paper. You'll have to go over it in pencil, but this helps make sure your sketch looks as good as it does on the paper.
5. I had to do a bit of research into the Dr. Seuss fonts.....because other fonts just didn't look right when I sketched them out on paper...the quote NEEDED this Dr. Seuss-ish font. You can find them actually to download no problem into Word, but the problem I had was the spacing aspect....it didn't look right when I typed the quote in.....so I did it the long way......I printed out the whole alphabet in the size I was happy with and traced the letters in the quote on parchment paper. I tried doing it by hand...but it just didn't look as good....and it had to be perfect.....Once I finally had the whole quote written out, I flipped it over (remember, it will be backwards otherwise) and sharpie traced it onto the other side. Then, I went over it with my pencil on the canvas, took the parchment paper off, and touched up the letters with my pencil.
6. I did a bit more research for this part - the books needed to look like they were done in Dr. Seuss style. So I looked at Cat in the Hat images online and found some pictures where the Cat was balancing books as a part of the stack of items he was balancing on his head. So I took my pencil to the canvas and sketched three books in different directions, at different angles in the top right-hand corner. You're probably wondering why 3 books? In art you always want an odd number. It always looks better from a design aspect...so that's why I choose 3 books. I was going to add the fish from Cat in the Hat...but I didn't like how he looked on my canvas....so I took him off and painted over him....

Here's the final sketch!

7. The most exciting part of the process! Time to paint! I painted the light background first. I had to mix a couple of colours to get the final colour to look just right. After I had painted the background, I did the letters. Once the background and letters were painted, I painted the books and the Cat himself! Touch-ups were the final step, which of course took quite a while believe it or not. It had to look just right.

Here's what the canvas looked like over the whole process of painting: