Book Cloth from Found Canvas

Several years ago, I was attending studio classes at one of an art school's two campuses, and there were several paintings piled up in one area that are free for the taking as they were going to be discarded if not taken. I saw two paintings and decided that I would reuse them. Both of them were covered with newspaper and painted over.

I didn't want to paint over the ugly images, so I spent three days removing the newspaper from the canvas. I completely uncovered what was underneath, and liked the colors so much that I decided that I would use the existing color palette.

I decided that I would use my own stencil designs (available from Stencil Girl Products) to "flatten" the image, and use the colors that either contrast or complement the existing ones. I added more colors with acrylic paint markers to make them look more like printed fabric patterns.

I then removed the canvas from the wooden frame, and cut two pieces from the upper right corner for the book covers.

I cut the binders board for the covers - I glued the cut canvas pieces to the boards and let them dry before attaching them to the text block that I bought from a book binding supply company. I spray them with glossy acrylic UV protection spray to make the colors pop out and to protect them from the UV.  Shown below is the completed book with front and back covers.

When I first started this project, my original intention was to create a whole new painting, but after altering the existing painting, I liked the colors and patterns so much that I decided to make book covers from them instead.

In the future, I hope to be able to offer on-line classes on how to create these patterns and also how to make the book cloth from the canvas.

*Full disclosure: Andrew Borloz does receive compensation in the form of royalties for his own stencil designs from Stencil Girl Products.