Craft A Spell: Metallic World Map Splatter Art

I have seriously been digging on some world map art. I have been inspired by projects like this, this, and especially this. I decided to give into my urge to create something. I had downloaded this Silhouette file a long time ago with another project in mind that I never made and I had a 12x24 canvas in my closet. I grabbed some paints, got to crafting, and finally made my own world map art.

To make something similar, you will need:
-metallic paints: I used Martha Stewart's Metallic line in gold, light gold, copper, pewter, platinum, and sterling silver
-paint brushes
-12x24 canvas
-adhesive vinyl
-drop cloth
-water

To begin, I opened the world map file in Silhouette Studio. I only had 12x12 pieces of vinyl so I knew I would need to break the file up into two 12x12 files to fit nicely on my 12x24 canvas. It was important to make sure the files remained equal in size so I enlarged the entire file so that Africa, Europe, and Asia filled the 12x12 square in Silhouette Studio and then I cut out the Americas, Greenland, and Australia and dropped them into another file. One file had North and South America, Greenland, and Australia and the second file had Africa, Europe, and Asia. I cut them out and put them on my canvas using transfer paper.

Now, here is where I made my mistake. I could tell my vinyl wasn't sticking to the canvas well enough. But I decided to keep going anyway. I didn't feel like trying to fix it. I just wanted to craft and I didn't want to wait. I took my canvas outside onto my balcony (I had spread out my laminate picnic table cloth that I use as a drop cloth) because I knew I was going to make a mess (make sure you wear paint clothes and don't wear glasses!).

I did one color at a time. I put some paint on a paper plate and added a few drops of water. The Martha Stewart metallic paints are pretty thick and didn't splatter easily so the water helped. I splattered, dripped, and threw the paint around until it had covered a lot of the canvas (and myself).

Then I carefully peeled the stencil up. Here's where my previous mistake came back to bite me. I had bleed through of course. Listen to your instincts! Here's a picture from my camera phone of my mess.

After the paint had dried, I got some white paint and painted all along the inside of the continents to cover up all the splotchyness. Then I went back with all my colors and added some more carefully placed strategic splatter around everything. The United Kingdom and Ireland had been lost as had New Zealand so I made sure you could see them better.

I am super happy with how it came out! I know it's not perfect by any means. I lost some of the smaller islands and the cragginess around the continents but I'm okay with it.