These scarecrow silhouette paintings are perfect for the fall and Halloween. You can make them as haunting or cute as you want.
Take a dot on a walk and see what abstract art kids can create. Use our easy art lesson to make an abstract drawing or painting today.
One of the first posts I pinned to my "Painting Inspirations, Tutorials, and Projects" Pinterest board was an abstract watercolor tutorial from Grow Creative. I have been wanting to try Elise's technique for months, and now that I've done it, I don't think I can stop! The results are absolutely beautiful, and their map-like-qualities appeal greatly to the arty cartophile in me! (I am borrowing the term "arty cartophile" from Jill K. Berry and her book Personal Geographies, which I was inspired to pull off the bookshelf after creating these rubber cement resist watercolor paintings.) I followed Elise's technique pretty much exactly, so you can read her blog post for her directions, but I also took photos of each step of the process as I carried it out, so I thought I would share them with you here: First, I used blue painter's tape to secure my 9x12 cold-press watercolor paper to a piece of palette paper on my work space. (I tried low-tack artist's tape first, and too much watercolor paint seeped underneath it. The blue painter's tape left a gorgeous crisp edge.) Next, I dribbled rubber cement over the watercolor paper. There is no planning, just random dripping in all different directions. Then, I spent a little time with my embossing tool, speeding up the drying process for the rubber cement. This is not a task for the impatient! I get into a kind of trance, watching the rubber cement boil, bubble, pop, and dry. Once the rubber cement is dry, the paper is ready for its first application of watercolor paint. For this particular piece, I used Reeves tube watercolors in "Lemon Yellow." In some of my first pieces, I did a watercolor wash across the entire paper. For the example photographed here, I applied this first layer of watercolor in just some portions of the paper, leaving other parts white. The drying process for the watercolor paint is much faster than for the rubber cement! Now technically, you are supposed to apply more rubber cement, but I actually forgot, and put on a different color of watercolor. This time is was Reeves tube paint in basic "orange." I supplemented with another shade of orange from a set of pan watercolors. I used the orange paint to fill in some of those white spaces I left when I applied the Lemon Yellow. After a bit more drying with the heating tool, I applied more random rubber cement. More drying--which meant more time mesmerized by bubbling rubber cement. At this point it was time for my final color--Reeves tube watercolor in "Magenta." Gorgeous! After one final drying session with the embossing tool, I was ready to pull back the painter's tape and enjoy the crisp edge along the perimeter of my watercolor paper. The next step is to use the pads of my fingers to rub away all of the rubber cement that has been resisting various layers of watercolor paint. The rubber cement comes away in balls and crumbs, and leaves behind the wonderful pathways that give the art such a map-like quality. When all the rubber cement has been rubbed away...voila! Now, I think this piece looks beautiful, and am tempted to leave it as it is, but there is a final step that makes it look even more beautiful. Using a fine-tipped black Sharpie pen, I outline various pathways around the piece. (I tried Microns, but the "tooth" of the watercolor paper really does them in.) I start with all of the white pathways, and usually move on to the secondary colors, like yellow in this piece. When I was finished deciding which areas to outline in black, I had my finished piece: I think I could sit around and look at it all day! I really love the results of this technique. What do you think? This was my fourth 9x12 art piece using the rubber cement resist technique. Here are the earlier ones I created: These first two have a similar color combination, with more "lake blue" in the first one. I like how they look when I photograph them without the white perimeter: I'm showing these in backwards order, because this last one I am showing you is the first one I tried. Instead of using rubber cement, I used Art Maskoid, which is the same as frisket. But my bottle was almost completely dried up so I was kind of smearing sticky frisket across the page. At first, I thought the result looked kind of terrible, but it has grown on me, and looks like a map of some archipelago far out in the ocean. (You can also see how the artist's tape didn't give as clean of an edge as the painter's tape does.) Stay tuned, because in an upcoming post I will share some pretty cards I have made using this same rubber cement resist technique!
My daughter and I love the famous artists. We also love playing around with different paint techniques. We combined the two for these Monet inspired landscape sponge paintings. The sponge created a wonderful backdrop for these impressionist style paintings. We chose Monet’s Water Lilies and Bridge Over a Pond of Water Lilies as our inspiration. […]
Inside you'll find an easy step-by-step Scream Art Project Tutorial and Scream Art Coloring Page. Stop by and download yours for free.
How to draw animals : Visiting the zoo and dog farms are always fun for little children. Teach them to draw animals with these fantastic tips on how to draw animals. In this post you can learn animal
The first one is a line drawing of dandelions my husband gave me a few months ago. Dandelions are fine, but are by no means the prettiest flower out there. They do, however, rank pretty high on my list of favorites because they always signal that warm spring weather is near - a sentiment that seems foolish now that it's in the mid 90's and the "southern hug" of humidity has tightened its grip. The second one is of a bouquet from the table at my favorite cafe. It was the perfect day. Me, a stack of books and my iPod had a quiet morning while my sweet husband watched the kids for a few hours. I ate a giant slice of cake for breakfast and didn't have to explain to anyone under the age of four why that was okay for grown-ups to do. :) The flowers were sketched on the back of a bookmark, and I used some hot sauce and coffee to add a little bit of color.
This is a pretty spring craft for kids. Free printable hummingbird template available for painting, coloring, mixed media and more.
Houses Coloring Page - When I was a little girl I used to spend hours drawing houses and floor plans that went with them. I still remember my Dad walking to the end of our very long farm lane driveway to get the weekend newspaper. As soon as he brought it in I would fling
There’s a very cool image making the rounds on Pinterest, from a blog called Chalk In My Pocket. It’s made using watercolour paint, glue and salt, and involves squirting, painting and s…
This dry erase and water trick will amaze kids and adults alike! You can make your drawings float with just dry erase markers and water!
These Paint and Fold Autumn Reflections are a fun and beautiful painting technique. Create simple fall landscapes that is perfect for kids to adults.
If you’re interested in selling art on Pinterest, reading this article is an excellent place to start. Learn how to set up shop today.
The ultimate guide for artists on the best strategies for promoting your art on Pinterest. Reach more people and build brand awareness using Pinterest.
Learn how to draw and paint flowers with this collection of easy flower art projects, crafts, and painting ideas for artists of all ages.
Discover how to create the illusion of depth when drawing or painting. Practical methods to draw and paint with a sense of depth and space.
Follow me as I teach you how to draw a nose via simple step by step instructions. Learn to draw a realistic nose in 7 simple steps, starting with just a circle!
These self-portrait drawings by 5th graders were on display at the elementary school at the end of the school year, a nice tribute to the 5t...
First of all, I want to congratulate all of you who thought about my challenge and are going to step up this year to making your own doodles. Doodling is a very key ingredient to even the largest, most complex works of art. Before I get into cross hatching some more I have a little business to cover. Copic Certification, Anaheim I am opening my class on Friday, Jan 23 up to the general public. Anyone who can come is welcome for the 23 only. Cost is $120 but you get about $80 worth of product to keep, so it ends up being a really great deal for an all-day class. Send an e-mail to Kris at [email protected] or call her at 866-662-6742 to register. There are only a few spaces, so call right away. Applications for Spring East Coast Venues will be going out next week, so get on our mailing list today! This includes Florida, New Orleans, and any confirmed locations that SallyLynn will be teaching on the East Coast thru March. Tonite I will be giving a free lecture at 6:30 at the Eugene Public Library on the History of Manga and Manga trends in America. This is appropriate for teens or adults. I want to thank all the people who attended my teen workshop on drawing Manga earlier this week. The class was very full and very fun! I'll probably be teaching some more local classes this term, so look for Fine Art/Architecture workshops through DIVA and maybe another teen Manga class during school vacations at the Library. Now, let's start the New Year by stepping out of your comfort zone and drawing something yourself- simple cross hatching. Cross Hatching Basics In my post a few days ago I talked about what cross hatching is and what it is trying to accomplish, today I'd like to get into technique. Cross hatching is both very simple and very tricky at the same time. The idea is easy, you draw lines and they make something look shadowed. The tricky part is practicing to keep a steady hand. Drawing short lines will be easiest at first. Don't worry about making all the lines perfect, that will come with practice. Practice by doodling on anything handy. This is an exercize, not life or death, so relax and know that it's OK to make mistakes as you learn. First, find an angle for your artwork that feels natural. For me, I am right handed and feel most comfortable making strokes that are straight out from mu chest, but with a slight right slant (1). To get another angle to my hatching I need to turn my paper so the lines I draw will be facing that same comfortable direction (2). Then, you need to practice, practice, practice. Try drawing lots of little areas that are cross hatched. You can do this with a mechanical pencil, you can do it with a cheap ballpoint pen, whatever you have handy, just try drawing hatching marks. 2 Layer Cross Hatching Technique You need to practice putting marks that line up. It is easier to make the edge that you start from even, and let your pen gradually lift up at the end of the stroke. Turn your paper so that when you are adding the marks, the crisp edge feels natural to your hand and you work from the edge, out. When you come back in to add the second layer of hatching, also work from the starting edge out, or it looks a little strange. Notice my example. The trailing edges meet up nicely and look smooth. The second example looks strange because one trailing edge fades, but the other is crisp. If I were filling in an area between two outside lines this wouldn't matter as much, but on an open area it doesn't work. Practice until you can confidently add hatching that meets up with a line. Soon you'll be adding hatch marks to all sorts of things (squares on reports, lines on your notepad). This sort of doodle practice is very important to build relaxed, natural hand-eye coordination. NO STRESS! Why should you draw and doodle if it's going to be stressful? relax. Inking Pen Hatch Marks I'm usually making cross hatching on artwork that needs to be scanned in, so I tend to work with 0.1 or 0.05 mm multiliners. I made the mistake once of doing a large, beautiful, very detailed illustration with cross hatching in a 0.03 mm pen. When I scanned it in, the hatching was too fine for my scanner to pick up, particularly since I had to shrink the final artwork. All my hard work cross hatching was wasted! Now I draw slightly thicker and not quite so detailed. As you can see from these examples, there are lots of looks you can get from each pen size. When I draw, I work with a couple sheets of paper under my work at any time. This gives me a slight cushion so that I can push harder to get thicker or thinner lines from the same pen. On fine sizes like the 0.03 or 0.05mm pen, I would NOT push hard however. Those tips are sturdy for what they are, but they require a very light hand. Most people can get fine enough lines with a 0.1 or 0.2 mm inking pen. Look at how much thicker the 0.35 looks when compared to the 0.03 pen. The 1.0 pen looks really clunky and thick next to the finer sizes. I would probably not use the 1.0 by itself for hatching unless I were working on something very large and not too detailed. If you look back at the examples of the different pen sizes you'll see how layering once, twice, and a third time gives you progressively darker tones. You can always layer different pen sizes to get even darker tones. Here is an example of regular cross-hatching, with a 1.0 pen thrown in to really darken up the final edge area. It doesn't look so clunky when layered like this, unlike when it is used by itself. The circle really looks dimensional and shadowed now. For my final example today I've taken a simple chair from Lockhart Stamp Company and I want it to look like it came straight out of my old Alice in Wonderland book. It's so easy to make this chair look more detailed than it really is. I know that if I make a mistake I can always stamp it again. I'm using a really fine 0.05 mm pen because the picture is so small, but you could probably use a 0.1 or 0.2 mm pen and it would still look OK. I start with the first level of shadow in the areas I know will be darkest, then I come back with a second level. Now my chair looks like an antique illustration from around 1900, not just a nice garden chair. I know Karen won't mind if Alice comes and sits in this beautiful vinatge chair. Look at your own image collection and see which ones would look cool turned into vintage drawings simply by adding a few lines.
Great lesson by Artist Julie Duell that discusses perspective drawing for artists.
