The Laura Soap & Gift Shoppe: how to draw a mandala... Colouring mandalas is a fun & relaxing way to spend an afternoon (or morning) & it doesn't matter if you are a child, a grandparent or any age in between. You can buy colouring books, or find designs on the net.....or you can draw your own - it's pretty easy & lots of fun... Supplies needed: Paper (square is good, but you could just draw a square on regular paper), lead pencil, compass, ruler, eraser, black pen (I use a really fine (0.1) pigment liner), colour pencils 1.
First you need to draw you guidelines - draw a line (in pencil) from corner to corner, making an 'X'. Find the middle of your page top, bottom & sides & draw a line from top to bottom, then across the page, making a cross (make sure to go through the centre of the X). 2. Open your compass to half the width you want your finished mandala to be, place the point in the middle (where the lines meet) & draw your circle. 3. Start drawing! Have fun.... Romantic Paper Cuttings - Louise McLaren. Usually I show just one photo for my Fab Friday post, but I have a great explanation as to why there are several today... it's because we get to see behind the scenes as Louise McLaren, a paper cutter from Perthshire, Scotland, creates this lovely "Grow old with me, the best is yet to come" paper cutting.
Lou told me she fell into paper cutting without quite knowing that was what she was doing. She often made cards to give to friends and family, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago when a friend saw her Christmas card design and told her it was a paper cutting that she learned about the art. Lou then did a Google image search and was astounded at what she saw! She hand draws a design and does the cutting with a Swann-Morton scalpel and a 10A blade.
Lou is completely self taught and through trial and error has found the type of paper and blades that best suit her style. Cutting in progress The step into opening a shop originated with her cousin's wedding. Pointless Pretty Things: DIY Flying Pigs. My first ever DIY post on the blog was this Little Paper Bird Mobile - and it's actually still my most popular post to date! Sadly all of my paper birds got lost when I was moving house (I was definitely more than a bit sad!) So I decided to make some more paper friends... How to Make a Flying Pig Mobile You will need: Some light-weight card, pretty paper, white craft foam, glue, needle and thread. 1// Draw the outline of a pig on to your cardboard (you could use an image from the internet to trace or just draw your own). 2// Cut the pig shape out and use it as a template to draw out the shape again on to decorative paper. 3// Make another template for some wings and cut them out of white craft foam. 4// Glue the wings on to the pigs body and bend them back on themselves to give them a bit of shape. 5// Attach a length of thread to your pig so it can fly!
Aren't they sweet? A Swell Place to Dwell: Antique Window Art. When I was a kid we had a cabin that we went to every weekend in the summer. It was an old tiny little 2 room cabin that had an attached sunroom, which was turned into my room. When I moved out to go to university my parents decided that it was finally time to move out of the city. They spent years planning the perfect house, and when they were ready, they tore down the old cabin and built a beautiful new house on the same land.
Before tearing down the cabin my Mom took the time to remove all of the doors and windows. She hauled them around for years through a few more moves. The windows hung in our kitchen for a while (prior to the makeover last summer), and I converted one of the windows my Mom still had into a chalkboard/memo board for my Mom's office. I wanted to use them in our basement bathroom, but the space is small and dark and needs more colour than just white windows. I dug around in my frame/poster closet and found 2 old posters that we no longer had hanging up.
Decorate your Apartment: Dry Brush Painting - Oh So Very Pretty | A few of our favourite little things. I had been wanting to have something up on the walls for C’s place for awhile now, and I knew that I wanted to paint something on my own. I’m not sure how, but my parents decided when I was younger that I should go take some art lessons.
My teacher taught me the basics of sketching, watercolor, acrylic and oil painting, and many times over the years I’ve revisited those roots to make something I’d call my own. For this painting, I really wanted to use the dry brush technique. Using a dry brush to paint acrylic means that the paint brush is dry, and that you don’t use any water with the paint. For this painting, all you need is: 1-2 brushesCanvasAcrylic paints (in the color of your choice!) For this painting I had actually decided to use black and gold. I started with the gold/bronze paint. I made some random strokes of the gold/brush paint because I wanted it to sit behind the black paint later on.
Then, I started with the black. And then voila! Love, K. 389instagram About Karla Lim. Emil and the big sisters Brigitte Creative Blogger Award My contribution. Was für eine Überraschung, dass ich hier dabei sein darf! Nachdem ich die phantastische Anleitungen von den bisherig nominierten Blogs angeschaut habe, war ich ganz schön eingeschüchtert. Was soll ich tolles noch hier zeigen, was es noch nicht gab? Was kann ich eigentlich am besten? Zeichnen! Zeichnen kann ich und noch besser kann ich anderen das Zeichnen beibringen, das tue ich doch täglich. Also, hier eine kleine Anleitung, wie ihr in kürzeste Zeit Euch in wahre Küstlern verwandeln könnt.
Schummeln darf man dabei doch ein bisschen, aber das Geheimniss könnt ihr für Euch selber behalten. Lass uns loslegen! Fotokopien von Fotos. Wenn ihr alles bereitgestellt habt, gibt ihr ein Tropfen Linolfarbe auf die Glasplatte. Rollt ihr die Farbe mit der Walze in alle Richtungen dünn aus. Nun legt ihr das ausgewählte Papier vorsichtig und ohne Druck auf die Farbfläche.
Jetzt nehmt ihr den gut angespitzten Bleistift oder Kugelschreiber und mit etwas kräftigerem Druck paust ihr das Bild ab. Fertig? How to Make a Herringbone Art Piece, Easy and Fun! Long have I admired this art piece I found on pinterest. Long have I wanted it in my home. But small is my budget, and large is the size of the canvas I would want. So, of course, I just had to make it my own little self. Here’s what you’d need to make your own: Canvas in whatever size you like. It was a fun project, and I had lots of help from an eager pair of hands. I played around with adding more water to the paint too, which is how I ended up with that drippy spot in the top left corner above. After both canvases were painted, I grabbed a can of gold metallic spray paint and added some shiny speckled parts. Next, I cut pieces of FrogTape into rectangles. (I didn’t do any measuring, just a lot of eye-balling, because I like it imperfect I have no patience for petty “measurements” and “numbers.”)
Once it was all taped off, I removed a couple of the squares so the canvas would have some white spots, like the original. Now slooooowly, carefully, peel off the FrogTape. Recycled road map cork board. A recent house clean-out yielded many items we had a hard time parting with, even though their very existence has become obsolete in the last few years. One of the most noticeable of the bunch: road maps. As our ever-advancing phones and computers take over our lives, we find what was once useful is now trash, yet we couldn’t part with these beautiful maps! They reminded us of our childhood road trips and later travels throughout Europe. This month, we turned our junk into art and created these recycled cork board maps. We thought it would be an amazing project for a kids’ room to re-create the entire US using a road atlas. We didn’t get that far, but here is the beginning. — bbbcraft sisters The full project instructions continue after the jump . . . Materials Instructions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Weekend Art Project « The New Domestic. E made a painting this weekend! We’ve been wanting a large scale art-piece to go up on our dining room wall. We had a large framed photograph up but, at 26″ x 32″, it didn’t have the right scale for the room. We wanted to go big. Like, 60″ x 36″ big. Now the last time either of us did any painting was in art school. Back then we didn’t enjoy it much, mostly because neither of us were particularly good at it. Undeterred, we gave it a try. Inspired by color field paintings, I made a sketch in Illustrator and we tried different color combinations til we were happy.
Update: To complete the dining area, we painted a high chair red to add another splash of color to the room. Also, congrats to everyone who has been DIYing there own versions of the Weekend Art Project. If you love this style of geometric art, patterns and triangles visit our shop. The Lettered Set: Create your own watercolor masterpiece with clip art and masking tape. I believe that everyone has the ability to create a really cool piece of art with their own two hands. The great thing about this watercolor project is that you can't mess it up! The end result will be amazing no matter where the paint splatters.
I created this painting of a bull as my Valentine gift for Ran. You may recall his story about the Banditos Jalapeños. One of the beloved characters is a bull and this is my artistic interpretation of his appearance. I didn't have a whole lot of time so I used a stencil printed from a free online clip art source. Materials: Computer with internet access (to download the free clip art) Printer Scissors or Exacto knife Pencil Watercolors Paint Brush Cup of water Watercolor paper Masking tape 1. 3. 5. 6. Easy Watercolor Portrait Tutorial. I'm still working on decor for the bare walls of my home. I have lots of family photos to hang, but I wanted something with more color..... so I opted to created some bright watercolors of my son and created a tutorial to share! Now you may be thinking that this is way too hard, but it is WAY easier than it looks.
If you can trace an outline and color it in, you can do this! Materials: computer digital photo of a person printer printer paper pencil watercolor paper watercolor paints paintbrushes Step 1: Find a nice digital photo of your subject with an even amount of light and shadow on the face. Step 2: Open the photo in PicMonkey, a free online photo editor. Step 3: In PicMonkey, select the Effects option on the left sidebar. Step 4: In Posterize, slide the number of colors bar down to 2. Your photo should look like this now. Step 5: Decide on the size of painting you want to make and print out the digital photo in black and white in the size that you desire. Clip Art Paintings. Art in a room is like ice cream on apple pie (since I don't get the appeal of a cherry on top), it isn't complete without it.I have been looking for the perfect art for my eldest daughter's room.
The difficulty with art is the price, even prints can start to add up quickly. I'm reluctant to spend that kind of money for something of purely decorative value when we haven't even spent money on a much needed mattress, preferably one without springs poking me in the back. Yep, time to get creative. Do It Yourself Using Clip ArtWhen all else fails, do it yourself. Copy the smaller image to print rather than downloading an image, the more pixilated the picture the better. Experiment with different paint strokes. Acrylics work the best, but believe me you can work with whatever paints you have. Add lots of texture. How to Create Watercolor Flowers Tutorial Plus a Gorgeous Giveaway. Today I am so, so pleased to introduce Anna from Annika Likes!
Anna is a very talented, creative person who can knit up a storm and wield a watercolor-saturated brush like nobody’s business. In accordance with her watercolor know-how, she has created this tutorial for us to learn how to create gorgeous watercolor flowers. And — as a bonus — she’s offering four watercolor cards in a giveaway! See the bottom of this blog for the details on how to enter (it’s easy and more than worth it). So, without further ado, I’ll hand you over to Anna: Hi everyone! Watercolor is my favorite painting medium to work with because it’s so fluid and organic.
To get started, here are the supplies that you’ll need: A jar or tub of waterWatercolor paints (Crayola works just fine! Step 1: Cut your paper into the sizes you want to work with. The 9×12 inch watercolor pad makes two cards per page with some scraps leftover that I turn into bookmarks. Step 2: Choose the colors you want to use. Voila! Straw Painting Art Tutorial. Well, hello everyone! I hope you are ready for another abstract watercolor tutorial! I just love doing these. I think what I like most is (hopefully) inspiring others and helping them to discover that they can be creative :) Materials: Watercolor Paper Watercolor paints and brush Straw Stiff board to tape your paper too (optional) Masking Tape (optional) Step 1: If you would like a nice border around your painting, tape your watercolor paper down to a board with masking tape.
Step 2: Choose your color palette for your painting. Step 3: Load up your paint brush with some nice water-loaded watercolor paint. Step 4: Drop some wet watercolor paint onto your paper and blow the paint around with a straw. You can drip paint randomly all over your paper or try a more planned technique. Step 5: Continue to drip more paint onto your paper, alternating colors as you go. Step 6. Step 7: Carefully peel off the masking tape from the edges of your painting. Finished Object: Recycled Magazine Butterfly Collage « Peacock Chic. I love magazines. LOVE THEM!! I go the bookstore on a regular basis to find new ones that peak my interest. Don’t let me start another hobby because I will have acquired every magazine about the subject in order to saturate myself with information. Last year I signed up for 4 magazine subscriptions in an effort to curtail my investment in individual magazines and curb my visits to the bookstore.
Now, I said I love magazines but I have to admit I HATE magazine subscriptions. They stress me OUT!! I just think of all the room they take up and trees that sacrificed their lives so that I could have a quick read especially if they are not tutorial or pattern based giving me no reason to keep them. However, when I saw the The Butterfly Project at LollyChop via Craftzine I knew that at least a small part of my magazine collection (read: very small) would find new life via a pretty display of color. The project actually took me a few days to complete. See ya later! Like this: Like Loading... Painted Spoons | paperyandcakery.com. I feel melty. | Light&Spoon.
DIY: Dictionary Art. Inspiration: Origami Cranes | Craft Project: Clay Octopus. Denim Sunburst Textile Art. Canvas With Lighted Branches. The Daily Telecraft: DIY: How to Create a Framed Button Artwork. Johnnie of saved by love creations.