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Not en-tire-ly new

In this blog I will let you in on how I changed a painting we barely looked at into one we do not want to miss. By means of magnets I will be able to keep changing the pictures, echoing either the scenery of the room, or adding the new pictures we keep taking over time. I might actually be able to include some small elements on the inside of the canvas! This will become clear in a bit…

New life to an old canvas.
New life to an old canvas.

The painting that we barely looked at was the result of an amazing view on a trip that I was unable to capture nicely. Already right after having it printed we concluded that this wasnt the best picture for this frame. After some time and moving house a few times the canvas was damaged. This damage I would ideally like to keep for some character in the canvas.

Damaged canvas, cerveral moves and replacements.
Damaged canvas, ceveral moves and replacements.

Because the pictures that I chose this time were chosen because of the colour-scheme they had rather than being chosen for what is depicted. Black or dark grey would be preferred over any other colour as that would never suit all the pictures in this particular frame. You might ask yourself: “Why not white?”; it is because it meant changing the frame around the canvas back to white. I would rather have a new black frame if I would have done white. Besides, there are many people in the arts that prefer a black background behind a painting rather than white because black absorbs all the colours of the spectrum.

Colour sceme was the important factor, but not as if the subjects of these pictures aren’t worthy!

So, to work! Together with my daughter I painted the frame black. She was unable to handle the pencil properly, which resulted in even more characteristic damaged parts. Lovely as I was unable to keep all the parts that were damaged unpainted.

Painting just like mum!
Painting just like mum!

Now, in the past I have done something similar. For our wedding I painted the oceans in multiple hues of blue leaving out the white of the canvas for our guest to sign. After that day I used small cube-shaped magnets, 3mm, to fasten the pictures.

The magnets make a playfull arrangement of the photos possible.
The magnets create the possibility  of a playfull arrangement of the photos.

I tried to use different shape magnets this time, cylinders. Magnets come in many shapes and sizes, so you can personalize away. These cylinders did not work as well as the cubes because they seemed to be not as strong. The magnets I bought are called Neodymium. I got them from the website magnet-shop.com. They ship just about everywhere, so it seems. Their shop is in 4 different languages.

Two shapes of magnets on black painted recycled canvas.

Now, to complete this panel I tried for an old (racing bike) inner tire to be the way of fastening. It worked! I just pulled the tire around the canvas, no need for attaching it to the canvas because of the stretchiness of the tire. The screw I used in the wall is a particular big one, as you can see. This so it holds the rubber properly. This way of hanging it to the wall means you can turn the canvas around and decorate it differently.

Backwards display.
The tire is about 20 cm smaller than the canvas edge, it will stretch bigger due to the weight.

But right now it is in our bedroom, with all the pictures together. I do not need to warn you about the small parts in this project. Currently it is not safe to have this painting in any other room in the house. It is not a problem for us, as we are the ones in this house that appreciate it the most!

Seems to have worked well!
Time for bed!