I have always loved art in all forms. If you have been on this website for 5 minutes and the countless recipes, knitting, sewing and other crafts weren’t clue enough haha! I remember back in high school one time we got to use a projector to project a favorite picture onto a canvas and then we painted the canvas. It was such a fun project! Today’s inspiration fills a few needs/wants. My sister is putting together a movie space in her basement and she’s been really helpful with my transition into motherhood and I wanted to do something nice and unexpected for her. So I decided to take a classic foursome and translate them onto the canvas!
If you’re unfamiliar with these characters they’re a part of an old intermission commercial encouraging people to, as they say, “let’s all go to the lobby, to get ourselves a treat!” It’s so cute and very 1950s. We have a local drive in that is still in operation and they play this commercial in-between movies since it’s always a double feature!
I bought a little projector from Amazon. It did the job well for my intended purpose and I have watched a movie or two on it. It’s a great little projector and for the price I can’t really complain! Mini Projector, PVO Portable Projector for Cartoon, Kids Gift, Outdoor Movie Projector, LED Pico Video Projector for Home Theater Movie Projector with HDMI USB AV Interfaces and Remote Control I am an Amazon Affiliate and I might make a small commission with any qualifying purchase.
I set up my projector in my living room at 10 am when it was pretty bright in there. This worked against me a bit as I’ll explain later but basically a little less brightness going on in the room would have been great. I did prop up the projector with a nearby cat toy haha!
I decided to use my roku stick and bring up YouTube and find the commercial on there. The only issue with that is when you pause, the screen gets darker. So this is why being in a slightly darker environment might have been easier for me to trace out my picture. I can mirror my phone to the roku stick and bring up any photo on my phone, the only issue I faced with that is positioning the canvas correctly so I’d have the right size for the painting. I had the projector set up about 4 feet away and if I screen mirrored, I would have had to be much further away since my phone shows up in “landscape” orientation and I was needing “portrait.”
After it was traced I started to paint! I went color by color, there was no real reason why I started with yellow and then moved onto blue and green, it’s just what I did! I also mixed colors since I was being cheap at the craft store and just got the basics – red, yellow, blue, black and white. And if I’m being honest, mixing colors is pretty fun!
I know I was mimicking the colors from the cartoon, but I actually love that each character has yellow because it helps to tie them all together! Also it’s not easy to see, but I actually couldn’t make out what their legs and feet were doing when I was tracing so I just did my own thing. Once I painted the background I just sharpie’d the legs on!
I chose a purple background because it’s my sister’s favorite color. Also, kind of a happy accident, purple and yellow are complimentary colors so it actually really helps my concession characters pop a little more! I also wasn’t perfect at getting a flat solid color look to the background, but I like to think that adds charm!
For the saying at the top I had originally paused the video further where they put these words up, but it looked so sloppy. I decided I’d write it with some puff paint I already had instead and it would look better. I was lucky I had yellow because again, it “popped” out on that purple! Haha, I love puns! I also used the yellow puff paint to re-write the candy on the candy box.
I had a hard time handing this over, I thought it turned out so great! Again, I’ll point out what makes it great in my opinion. The use of yellow throughout helped give it continuity. The use of complimentary colors so there was some great contrast. I also love that the marker helped to give everything slightly more definition but didn’t take away from the fact that it’s a painting. My sister loved it btw!
I look forward to making more paintings with my projector! Even if it’s to get a base of inspiration like this one started out. It’s a great tool to have and will be fun for special movie nights too!
I hope y’all enjoyed this! Using a projector to aid in a painting isn’t a very hard process. What will you create? A portrait of a loved one? Either a human or an animal? I’d love to paint my cat and dog! Maybe I could make one of those funny paintings where they look like army generals or captains. Sargent Baby Girl and Captain Dipper. Oh man, the possibilities are endless! Tag me on social if you make this project, I’d love to see it!
Did you love this post? Let me know in the comments or buy me a coffee! It helps keep the website ad free! Be sure to save this site because the Handmade Holidays for this year is coming up and I have so many great things going in!
XOXO
-Robin
