Have you ever tried to make your own canvas paintings using Silhouette Studio®? It’s actually a lot easier than you might think, and you don’t even need a Silhouette machine! Check out the tutorial below to see how you can make your very own animal canvas paintings.

Supplies Needed:

Step One: Preparing and Printing the Designs

1. Open the Lion Face design (Design ID #343002) in Silhouette Studio®. In the Page Setup panel, change the cutting mat, media size, and media orientation if needed. Make sure your workspace matches the size of the copy paper you will be printing on. (We are using letter size.) Resize the design to fit inside the workspace. Make sure it doesn’t overlap your printing area. 

2. Open the Fill panel. Select your design and click the clear color button.

 3. Select the design and, in the Line Style panel, increase the line thickness up to .50 pt so that it will be visible when you print the design. You can change the color of the lines in the Line Color section.

4. Place your design in the center of the page by selecting it and clicking on Center to Page button in the Transform panel.  

5. Once your design is ready to go, feed the copy paper into your printer and click on the Print icon in Silhouette Studio®. Repeat the same steps for the Born to Be Wild and Hipster Giraffe designs.

Step Two: Transfer Printed Designs onto Canvas

1. Flip the paper over and trace the design on the back of the paper with a pencil.

2. Place the image on the canvas with the pencil shaded side facing down and tape it onto the canvas. 

3. Trace over the image with a sharp pencil, using some pressure to transfer the graphite from the other side of the paper onto the canvas. Note: If you’re using a stretched canvas, you’ll need to put a firm support underneath it (such as books) to prevent warping from the pencil pressure. 

4. After outlining your image, you can remove the stencil paper, and you should see the transfer of your image ready for painting!

5. Using acrylic paint, color your designs.

This is an easy and fun project for grown-ups and kids alike! What kinds of canvas paintings would you like to create using this method?