Art Project

 

It's been a long time since I've been able to devote time to painting.  It's hard, when you have small children, to pull out all your watercolors or acrylics, brushes, water, paper towels, etc. Not to mention, trying to have more than five minutes of uninterrupted time, or being able to leave your canvas for a few minutes without a child picking up a paintbrush and "helping". 

But in the past year, I've felt the pull to create again.  I've started playing with my watercolors again (man, I've lost just about any technique I ever had), "electronic paint" programs on the tablet, and--the easiest--my acrylics. 

Recently, while searching for Halloween costume tutorials online, I found a pretty canvas of a stylized blossom, complete with tutorial.  I liked the look, the clean lines, the slightly off-center nature.  I didn't love the idea of having to cut out millions of "petals", nor did I have any pretty colored papers.  And because I was hoping to put it in my upstairs bathroom, paper (covered with Modge-Podge or not), didn't seem like the best idea.

So I decided to make something that looked the same, but with paints instead of paper.

It was really easy!  I started out with two 10x14 stretched canvases, and painted them the background color I wanted.  While they dried completely, I took cardstock and cut out ONE petal, the size and shape I wanted.  After deciding where I wanted the middle of the "blossom" to be, I used a child-sized cup to lightly draw a circle there.  Then I used my petal template to draw the petals, starting around the cup circle and then radiating out.  Then I grabbed the paints I wanted to use and started painting!  I painted about six to eight petals of the same color at a time, staggering the color around the blossom.  Most every petal needed more than one coat, and some (the gold) took three.  And then I took a little tiny brush and patterned some of them, just for fun.

It was easy, but it was pretty time-consuming.  I just listened to my audiobook (David McCullough's bio of Harry Truman), though, sat with my back to the open window, with rain-scented breezes blowing in, and had a marvelous time. 

(And of course I hopped up every twenty-thirty minutes to help my two youngest. But they are old enough to listen when Momma threatens them with dire things if they so much as THINK about touching.)

Anyway, I love the way they turned out!