Canvas Painting with my Daughter - Fireflies in Mason Jars

Before the pandemic began, I really wanted to go to a studio that does paint and sip parties!  They looked like such a good time, and even though I'm not really an acrylic painter, I'm always up for an art adventure!  

But alas, Covid happened and I never got there.  Recently, I did venture into our local Dollar Tree.  I don't go hardly anywhere right now, but our Dollar Tree is rarely busy and right around the corner from my house, so I stopped by to specifically check out the crafting section!  I found SO many great things!!!  I'm doing a post later on this month about all of my favorite bargain finds, so this is just a preview!  They had SO many canvases!!!  I decided to snag 2 small canvases for my daughter and I, each 5x7:  

Once I brought the canvases home, my daughter and I took to Pinterest to find an image we thought would be fun to paint.  I came across a fab image from Grade Onederful of a mason jar filled with fireflies!  It was originally a watercolor picture, but we both looked at it and decided we could do it on canvases pretty easily!  

Before we started, I *did* gesso each canvas after we brought them home.  I bought a HUGE bottle of gesso to use for all acrylic painting projects awhile ago, and so I always make sure to gesso my cheap canvases because it improves the quality a ton AND it helps your paint to go further!  

We used Artist's Loft acrylic paint.  I have a good amount of it because it's inexpensive and our local Michael's has been great about doing curbside pickup!  We both started by sketching out our mason jars and fireflies on the canvas.  Then we painted!  

We used metallic white for the stars in the jars, and a sponge to make the yellow glow for the fireflies!  Then we used acrylic paint pens to draw and color in the fireflies!  

This was such a fun project that my daughter and I decided we are going to buy and make canvases for at least every season to hang in a spot in our home! 

Have you ever tried budget canvases for fun projects?  What would you paint for springtime?  Let me know in the comments below!