For the Twi-hards

I'm going to start off with some honesty. This is not my favorite piece...the creative process was very weird, but I just gave in to it and this was my result. While I don't love it I think the idea is still really cool, and will hopefully continue to try things like this until I get it right. Maybe some of you will try it, and get there before me! 

In case you aren't understanding the reference this is a copy of the cover of the third twilight book Breaking Dawn:

Start off with a canvas, mine is 16x20 and paint it black. As you can see I used a foam brush and regular acrylic paint. 

I painted all in one direction, not that it made so much of a difference since the black paint was pretty thick so you couldn't really see stroke lines anyway. 

Ta-Da! black canvas! 

Let that dry, and then go find someone who is more artistic than you and owes you a favor...in my case it was my roommate Rachel (thanks Rach!) I sat her down in front of the picture I wanted, gave her a piece of chalk and promised her chocolate! 

She drew me this: 

YAY for talented friends! 

I bought twilight at Goodwill for 2 dollars!
(which is what inspired this project in the first place by the way) and while I know it isn't Breaking Dawn, the picture on breaking dawn was just cooler than on the first book, so everyone is just going to have to be ok with it. 

I ripped a bunch of pages out and cut them up like so. I obviously used more squares than the one in this picture but I just kept cutting as I needed more. I also cut smaller pieces for the more detailed areas. 

I used Elmer's glue and pasted the paper in accordance with the sketch.

Since there is chalk all over the canvas I needed to paint in black again, so I painted over all the chalk and only slightly over the book pages

I could still see through to where the lines ended so I could do another layer of book pages. No picture of the next layer...but put it on just like the first. 

Then I needed to make the red pawn! I wasn't sure if this would work, and felt pretty great that it did! So many future possibilities!

I got this paint at RiteAid for a bit more than I would have liked to pay, but it did the trick

Mix the paint in a bowl with a little bit of water

and using a felt brush paint over some pages! If it isn't see through enough add more water. Don't be afraid to test out some pages for different looks, Twilight has about 500 pages so go crazy. 

I only did 3 and it was more than enough once I cut them up.

I wanted it to be shiny so I got some Mod Podge with a gloss finish. This was my first time using Mod Podge! Woohoo! In case you don't know Mod Podge is a mix of glue and water (that I've been told you can make at home which I'll maybe try when I am more familiar with it) it is a sealer used in a ton of crafts, and I can't wait to keep using it! 

 I generously painted it on with a foam brush. In retrospect I should have been more careful to paste down the corners of the pages, since some of them would come up when I was putting on the Mod Podge which made it more difficult. 

This is what it looks like waiting to dry (don't worry it will dry clear) 

Hang it up, and it is complete!