Had so much fun during the process of making this painting, thought I’d share!
Preparing the Surface
- Start with a DIY Masonite Panel (or any hard surface) & stack of old leftover book pages (or any paper good for collaging).
- Mod Podge pages to the board – in a pattern or not, just cover the whole thing. Use the mod podge as a glue, putting it directly on the board then smoothing the pages over the top.
- Paint the board with white acrylic – use a big brush and not a lot of paint. You don’t want to cover the whole thing so the texture and color of the book pages come through.
- Once the paint is dry use your handy putty knife to scrape at it a while to give it a warn look. Don’t be afraid to dig into the pages and tear up small edges and corners.
- Paint over it again with the white acrylic if you’d like.
- Then you have a wonderful texture-y surface to draw or paint on!
Painting with Tissue Paper
- Sketch out the elephant or whatever shape/animal you’d like.
- Find a sheet of tissue paper that will cover the whole shape you want to fill in.
- Fill in the shape with a gluestick, it doesn’t have to be exact but it’s better to be a little out of the lines than inside.
- Carefully smooth the tissue paper over the glue’d areas – using a tissue works well for smoothing.
- Once it’s all covered and dry cut around the shape with an exacto and remove the extra tissue.
- At that point I drew over the elephant again with a dark pencil line but do whatchya want!
I made a smaller version on paper with a cute little elephant stamp I found at Jo-Ann’s too!
Yesterday were my first two workshops at Art Unraveled and they were fantastic. I was surprised that the primary age-group of attendees was 60+ (and 100% women), but who wouldn’t feel comfortable in a room full of hip and crafty grandma’s? I feel like I’m getting a headstart.
The first workshop was “Soldering for Maidens” with the lovely Paula Hardesty. Unfortunately I was too enthralled with soldering to snap any process photos but here’s what I made!
In case you’re wondering, they’re supposed to be lumpy like that – texture!! It was actually a lot easier than I imagined and Paula was a wonderful and thorough instructor, really sweet too.
Last night I attended the workshop “Ancient Amulets” with Laurie Mika. I have to say this, because I thought it all night – she’s basically who I want to be when I grow up. Wordly, artistic, smart and her techniques, swoon! If you ever have the opportunity definitely take a class, buy her book, research her online – she’s awesome.
The above photo are pieces from the class, I wish I knew who’s was who and everyones name! And here’s my little guys:
One woman’s comment on the purple one, “Oh, that one’s….. different?” Story of my life! My new friend for the day was Gloria from Surprise, AZ – kind and funny with a great attitude towards life and art and a big big heart.
Today I took the day off to get some work done, which of course I haven’t done yet. Tomorrow is “Plastered in Wax” – I’ve been wanting to learn encaustic painting for YEARS, cannot wait. Then Sunday is “Creating Hollow Forms in Color.” Not sure I’ll be blogging about every day but you can check out all the photos on flickr!
Make your own!
These ornaments are super simple to make, you just need a wooden block, an eye hook, gluestick and whatever else you want to glue or stamp on!
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Spent yesterday sitting at my sewing desk experimenting with piles of buttons, wire, pliers, embroidery floss and fabric scraps. I’ll probably try a few more times but am pretty happy with the above results. I’m donating the ornaments to the 5th Annual Artist-Made Ornament Exhibition at MADE art boutique!
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Hello, I'm Amanda Hawkins. Ahhh-Design is where I post art, projects, diy planner templates, tutorials and more.
