Patriotic Flower Painted on Burlap

Paint an American flag on anything in any shape and it immediately becomes fun patriotic decor.  With a small burlap canvas and paint, I created a flower shaped flag art for my mantel.

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Each season, I make a new wreath for my mantel.  This time I decided to try something a little different.

I didn’t make a wreath for my mantel this time around. Which is what I usually do for my large stone fireplace with it’s very long and rustic wood mantel.  I make a wreath for each season.  I like the look and it just helps to fill in the space.  This time, however, for my summer patriotic mantel I plan to leave up until after Labor Day this year, I created a color patriotic flower painted on burlap canvas.

 

This rustic patriotic flower painting is really supposed to mimic a patriotic wreath that I originally wanted to create for the mantel.  But sometimes you just want to do something a bit different.  So instead, I reused a square 12″ x 12″ burlap canvas I had in my craft stash, some painter’s tape, and a pencil to outline and create a festive patriotic flower.

 

The design of the flower is easy to recreate with things you already have on hand.

 

 

To start the center of the flower, I painted the bottom circle of a small bowl with golden yellow acrylic paint to start the design.  By pressing the painted image of the circle on the burlap, it easily created the center of the flower.  I filled in the circle image with several layers of the paint and allowed it to dry.

 

 

The next few steps were needed to find the size and placement of each petal.  Since I wanted the flower design to resemble the American flag, I needed enough petals for the navy blue section, and exactly 13 petals for the red and white petals around the center.

To determine the length of each petal, I measured the space from the yellow painted circle to the edge of the canvas and found that each petal could be between 4 and 5 inches long. 

 

 

Knowing I needed at least 20 petals around the center to make the design, I decided to use 24mm wide painters tape (.94 inch) , cut into 5 inch strips, and placed those around the center of the circle to find the correct placement for each petal.

 

 

Use the tape strips as a guide to create the placement for the flower petals.

 

 

Once all of the painter’s tape pieces were in place as a guide, I started at the piece on top of taped pieces, traced along the edges of the tape with a pencil, and then joined the two lines at a point at the top to form the outline for the first petal.

 

 

The pencil lines were painted over with an outline of navy paint for the first petal.  Using the pencil again, I trace the outline of the painter’s tape piece next to it and followed the same procedure to outline the pencil marks in navy.  I completed the painted outline of the first 7 navy petals to the left of the flower design. Once the outline of each petal was painted in, I removed that piece of tape from the design and continued around the whole canvas.

Sorry, I got so focused on creating the petals, I didn’t realize until I started this post that I didn’t have any photos of these steps.  but the process is very simple to repeat.

 

 

Making sure to start and stop the red petal designs on either side of the blue petal sections, I completed the same steps for the red petals of the flower but on every other one.  I waited until the red paint was fully dry before painting in the outlines of the white petals because I didn’t want the two colors to blend together.

It took two coats of paint on each petal in either the navy, red, or white to fill in the petal design on the burlap.

 

 

At first, this was all I had planned for the patriotic flower design, but when I put the canvas on the mantel and stepped away from it, I decided it just needed more pizzazz or bling or something.  It was just too plain and the end of the petals touching the center of the design blended together too much.

 

 

Picking up my paint brushes again, I added very small white dots to the blue petals to make them stand out more and look more like a flag.  Then I used metallic acrylic paint in silver and added lines and details between each petal and around the golden yellow center.  The final silver accents were added to the end of each petal.  It was just what this painting needed to finish it off.

 

 

This patriotic flower painting will now be part of my Summer mantel display that I will reveal very soon.  I just love the blend of red, white, and blue for the summer months so intend to leave this mantel display up until Labor Day.

 

 

Psalm 18:2 “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.”