DIY: Tik Tok Ghost Painting with a Taylor Swift Anti-Hero Twist

So the other day a co-worker came to work with a canvas tote bag that had this cute painting of a sheet ghost in a strawberry field on it. It immediately made me think of the ghosts in the music video for Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift and I went down a rabbit hole to figure out how I could recreate it and turn it into a library program.

It turns out, sheet ghost painting is a huge Tik Tok trend right now. People are buying old canvases at thrift stores and painting ghosts on them, which is a genius program in and of itself.

I wanted very specifically to create the Anti-Hero ghosts, and I don’t have the actual talent for that. So I did a 2-step process that included painting a ghost and uploading it to Canva to create my art.

But first, here’s what I was going for. In the video for Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift has several people wearing sheets as ghosts in her video. It’s a very popular image.

So here’s my 2 step process to create my Anti-Hero ghosts in a strawberry field image:

Step 1: Painting the Ghosts

Prepping Your Canvas: I started with black canvas. You can paint a canvas black or buy already black canvases. If you are going to paint canvas black, you need to do this part ahead of your program so they are prepped and ready.

Paint colors: White, Black, Dark Grey and Light Grey. I recommend acrylic paint.

You will also need: various size brushes, a paper plate and a table protector, like a tablecloth.

This is the easiest painting I have ever done. You just kind of paint a white blob with a head and 3 bumps at the bottom.

You then use the black and greys to add shading. It works best if you shade the areas near the rises in the 3 bumps to make it look like naturally occurring folds in the sheet. If you don’t like the way it looks, you can add white, start over, etc.

At this step, stop and take a picture of your canvas. It doesn’t even need to be dry. Save it for later.

I used black paint and my finger tip to make the eyes.

Again, take a picture of your canvas, even while it’s wet. Set it aside to drive and proceed to the next steps.

Phase 2: Using Canva to turn your painting into something else

Painting the ghost is fun and easy, but I don’t have the talent to do the things I wanted. But I know how to use Canva, so that’s what I used to finish my project. This is a great way to extend the program and teach new tech skills while teens wait for their canvases dry.

First, take a photo of your canvas and upload it onto Canva if you haven’t already. Upload this into Canva.

You can then use the edit feature to remove the background, which leaves you only with the ghost.

I searched in the elements tool bar for “painted” elements, including painted backgrounds and painted strawberries. There are a ton of elements to choose from to make your painting look however you want it to.

I also added small painted flowers all over the ghost on the right to give it a pattern kind of similar to the Anti-Hero ghost. And I did something similar for the ghost on the left.

Painted sunglasses and hats were also added.

The trick to working with Canva like this is to watch your elements layering. Zoom in and make sure all the elements flow together well and connect, etc.

Once you are done, you have an image that you can do a lot with. Download it and print it. If you have the means, you can print it and turn your “painting” into a tumbler, water bottle, tote bag and more.

Plus, you have a cool hand painted ghost canvas that is perfect for the Halloween season.

The painting elements were relatively inexpensive and easy to do. You’ll obviously need a way to photograph canvas and upload to Canva for step 2, but a lot of us now have tablets or laptops that you can easily do this with. But the ghost canvases in and of themselves are cute!

Filed under: DIY