brand new bag

Recently I bought a canvas shoulder bag, and last week I decided to spruce it up by painting a lion skeleton on it.  I had planned to take pictures at the end of each of the three stages, but realized halfway through the third stage that I hadn't taken a picture of the second one.  Oh well.  Anyway, the end result looks a bit like an illustration from a grade school textbook to me.  Maybe because I read all those Zoobooks as a kid...

Stage 1:  After finding a good photo (thanks, Google image search!) and printing it off, I used it to cut out a stencil from a magazine page (the glossy paper is less permeable).  I painted the back of the stencil with a layer of rubber cement and let it dry, then stuck it to the flap of the bag.  After taping up the sides of the flap, I went to town with a stencil brush and some black fabric paint, then peeled off the stencil before the paint was dry, so it wouldn't stick too much.  In stage 2 (not shown), I used a small brush and more black fabric paint to add in details, referring to the photo as my guide.

Stage 3: Using the same small brush as in stage 2, I added in highlights with opaque white fabric paint, then heat set as per the instructions on the paint jar.  This caused the plastic backing on the lower part of the flap to warp a little, but whatcha gonna do?