EDIT! I've gotten a lot of questions about this project and shared some extra tips here!
This project was completely inspired by this. I loved the huge size. I loved the black and white. My original plan was to make my handwriting messy and almost not readable just like that inspiration image. But then I got started and knew I would mess it up if I tried to do anything other than write my normal way.
The canvas is huge. The second largest one that Michael's sells. I "primed" it by painting it with a combination of white acrylic and water. The next night, I started writing with a mix of black acrylic and water. At first, I tried to make the words dark and perfect the first time around. And then I realized that was messing up my letter flow and it looked strange. So I went down the whole canvas with one or two dabs of paint per word. The color, of course, didn't look good, but the words appeared more naturally written, which is what I wanted.
Then I went back and retraced all my words with a good coat of black paint.
The words are lyrics from Swing Life Away by Rise Against. Long ago, when Paul and I first started dating, he had me listen to this song. Then one weekend when we were headed out with some of his friends, I slipped him a piece of paper with one of my favorite lines from the song. (I think he still has it in his wallet.) When we were in Maryland we especially liked the line "let's pack our bags and settle down where palm trees grow" because of course, San Diego was the goal. This was the song we chose for our first dance at our wedding.
Of course, I didn't measure or plan (or even have the lyrics written down in advance) and so I sort of ran out of room and didn't get to fit the palm tree line into it. But I finished with maybe the most important line of the whole song : "If love is a labor I'll slave 'til the end."
It is one of my favorites. It hangs right in our front entry way area (which will make more sense when I share a downstairs tour soon) so it's the first thing you see when you walk in. It might be a little intense for for that, but I love it and happily Paul does too.
This is project 18 of 26.
I am attempting to tackle 26 personal craft projects before I turn 27 on 02.22.12. You can follow my progress here on the blog or on pinterest.
See project 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 & 17.
enJOY it 
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