4 Easy Steps to Art

 

It's spring break here and I'm trying to keep the kids busy.

 

So far we've....

 

We've gone to a movie

(Mr. Peabody and Sherman)

 

Iced sugar cookies

 

Played with our friends

 

and made some cool looking art with our cousins.

 

I found this artist on

pinterest and thought it

would make a fun project for the older kids.

 

 

It's so easy and I think the final results are terrific.

 

 

1.First we cut out shapes from cereal boxes and covered them in magazine pages.

2. Then we covered out canvases with paint

3. Then we glued around the edges of the cardboard shapes with seed beads (which then were painted gold) or "dot art" with gold paint.

4. Then we arranged them and glued them down.

 

Voila

 

 

This is a close up of the seed bead technique.

 

 

and this is a close up of the "dot art" technique.

 

 

Super fun and super easy.

 

I think I might have to try my hand at it.

 

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4 Random Projects

 With Christmas

coming up and projects needing to be completed,

I've been in high efficiency mode and

things have got done.

The first was more of a fun project,

 I was given a

chalkboard

 at a favorite things party and I couldn't leave it blank so.....

 

I found this hot cocoa recipe on pinterest

and stayed up late after the party for another hour to finish it.

 

 

My kids saw it in the morning and now want their own chalkboards.

 

Add another

 project for me that needs to be done by

Christmas.

 

 

Remember these knobs,

well now they're great necklace holders.

 

 

 

This was what I gave as my favorite thing at the party.

 

 

Had a party with my daughter and some of her friends. 

Made these really cute paintings

 

 

 *Be YOU tiful*

 

 

And last was this cute writing desk that I found at a garage sale in the summer.

 

It needed some love.

 

Had major potential though,

look at that carved border.

 

 

Now it's bright and beautiful

 

 

My daughter loves having this dainty little desk in her room.

I'm still on the hunt for a petite chair or stool to go with it, something in cream or white.

Maybe like these stools from

foter

 

The desk has a flip down drawer that holds some of her special things.

 

 

This desk has amazing details and is so pretty.

 

 



 

Well tomorrow I'm off to finish some projects at the "shop" because,

 Christmas is coming.

 

Hope everyone is enjoying this Christmas Season.

 

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Silent Auction Painting

About a month ago my daughter came home and asked if I wanted to donate

a painting to her school band's silent auction. 

 I of course said yes and thought that a month

was plenty of time for me. 

Well this morning she reminded me that it was due

TOMORROW.

(panic)

Here's what I came up with. 

 I really like it and think it would look great in some teen aged girl's room. 

Happy bidding.

Some fun details.

 I love my stencils from Martha Stewart they add such depth.

(with frame)

These are the

stencils that I used.

I might have to go back to the store

and see what other ones they have.

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Reflection

It's been really busy around here with the school year coming to a close, B-Ball for the kids, gardening, spring clean up and starting physiotherapy for my ankle. 

But I finally took the time to get a new painting done. 

It's quite a big painting (4' x 5')

and a huge impact in my front room.

I love it.

I love all the layers of paint

These close up's could stand alone as paintings themselves.

One of the things I took from abstract painting classes

was that It's hard to look at a blank canvas and come up with a painting. 

 It's much easier to start with something and react to what you see.

Here's the older painting I had painted for the front room

and a little insight into how I painted the new one.

   

I added painter tape and masked off a design that I liked.

(don't mind the toes)

.

Then I added layers of white.

(with hints of citron green, blue and grey)

Took off the tape.

and soften the middle image.

adding the splatters and streaks really 

finalized this painting for me.

Hope you enjoyed

and I hope you pull out your own paint brush.

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Chameleon Painting

Well it's been very cold here (-30 C) and instead of facing the cold I decided to stay inside, pull out the paints and do a painting for my little boy's room.  I saw this chameleon on pinterest and was totally inspired to have a chameleon painting in his room.  He sat next to me and painted his own painting all morning and we had a very fun day together.

I thought I would show you some of the stages of the painting.

First is the empty canvas (some days I find it inspiring and others intimidating)

Then I did a quick sketch.

Ripped some paper into strips and "glued" them down with gel medium.

I added some paint on the background and some fiddle heads, mushrooms and leaves on the paper.

(I was loving these on pinterest )

and started painting all the details and stencilling where I felt it needed it.



One more branch and some shadowing and it's done.



It's darker than the real thing and the colours are a little muted but, I was NOT going to go outside for a good photo so I put it as close to a window as possible and stayed nice and warm all day long.

Poppies

One of the reasons I started my blog this year in April was to have some place to show my paintings.  Somewhere to motivate me to keep doing the things that I love to do. 

 Here is a painting for my mother.