Embellishing A Canvas Print

Artist Tip: If metallics are dulled during the photography and print-making process, embellishing your prints with metallic accents can be one of the BEST ways to make your reproduced work shine.

My favourite metallic paints for embellishing a canvas are Liquitex Professional Acrylic Inks. I love the pack of 3: Iridescent Bright Gold, Iridescent Rich Copper & Iridescent Rich Bronze.

If you want to be economical, purchase just one 30ml dropper bottle (1 US fl oz) in your favourite colour.

If you smudge the paint or want to "redo" the embellishment, have a wet wipe/ damp paper towel handy to wipe away the unwanted paint. This ONLY applies to canvas prints, not cotton rags prints.

To go for "energy" in an abstract reproduced work, consider recreating that energy and choose the same brush that you used for the original work. For this piece I used a Liner brush (watercolour) & held it loosely at the handle. The looser the mark-making, the more free & energetic the work will feel.

The goal of "embellishment" is to recreate beautiful colours, marks & textures with a minimal addition of paints & artist energy. This will make the print look and feel more like the original you intended when you first created it. You may choose to paint over the whole canvas, which I have recently done, but that is for a different post.

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