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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!

I was never happy with canvas, my fourth year of art school I tried masonite and never looked back! I love digging into the wood through the paint and gesso to pull out wood colors and textures. One of my favorite painting tools is an old nail!

Supplies

Masonite (Hardboard), 1″ x 2″ Plywood, Wood Glue, Nails, Hammer, Saw, Safety Goggles & a pencil

Trip to hardware store!

Bought a piece of 4ft x 8ft masonite ($12) – and had them cut it into 8 2ft x 2ft pieces. Also bought goggles and a little jigsaw (only $45 total, worth it if you’ll be doing a lot of sawing – hand saws are cheaper but SO much more work and time)

Masonite Panel #1
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I’ve been following paperboatcaptain (aka Maria, an apprentice boatbuilder and artist from Germany) for a while on flickr. Her drawings/collages are whimsical w/bright colors and gorgeous textures.

paperboatcaptain

AND THEN!
She contacted me a few days ago to share photos of her new little handmade organizer using my DIY Planner Templates, I almost fell out of my chair it’s SO cool!

paperboatcaptain paperboatcaptain paperboatcaptain

Check out more photos of it and her lovely artwork on flickr.
Thanks so much for sharing Maria!

The internet’s a crazy place… you send these little pieces of yourself into space and every once in a while they find a little home and grow into something unexpected and beautiful. xo

I saw a post on Julia Pott on Doodlers Anonymous the other day and FELL IN LOVE! She was having a sale (should’ve posted this before it was over, it’s still super affordable tho!) – So, I bought myself two and one for a gift for my sister for her birthday (surprise!). The two I ordered are below, check her shop for LOADS more!

juliapotts

Aren’t they wonderful?!

AshVirginTopoBrown_Front_300

I was apparently on a crazy shopping spree ’cause I bought these shoes after seeing them on a Design Sponge post by guest author, Rei Jin. LOVE.

In other news, I’ve decided to TRY and update my blog more often and lighter. Changed the layout of this area a little so it’s not connected with the featured posts on the main page. Before I felt like every post had to be oh-so-important, now I’m just going to write whatever I feel like and not worry about it!

Amanda Hawkins

Amanda Hawkins

Take care of little humans,
stare at tiny computer,
scribble on paper,
daydream.
Maker of DIY Planners and 🎨 artist; front-end web developer and designer well-versed in CSS & WordPress. Make music with RBK & as Love Morris. Check out littlebird.ahhh.co if you're interested in hiring me for WordPress dev. Subscribe to a newsletter I never send out. Connect on Instagram & Twitter.

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