Monday, July 29, 2013

Updating the Chandelier with Paper Clips and Beads.


Sometimes, a simple thing can give a bit of change to a room.

I decided I wanted to add a bit of fun in our living room
with some beads on the chandelier.




 First I painted the chandelier white, and painted the plastic candlestick covers a French blue.


 I found these beads at the craft store on sale for a good price.

The total for them came to about $10.




 I put them all on a plate and stirred them to mix them.









There are 5 arms on the chandelier,
so I found 15 paper clips,
5 small ones and 10 slightly larger ones,
and put 4 beads on the smaller ones and 5 beads on the larger ones.




I randomly 
strung most of the rest of the beads on a long flexible elastic string.








The rest of the beads, I strung onto a sturdy wire.




 The wire piece was then wrapped around the centerpiece of the chandelier.





The little paperclips were hung on each of the looping arms of the chandelier
and two of each of the larger paper clips were hung from each of the candlestick dishes.








The long string of beads had been tied together,
and I carefully draped them first along the inside little paper clips
and then from the larger paper clips, 
looping and draping and rearranging until it looked evenly spaced. 





 The beads and new lighter color give a fun, fresh look to the chandelier.

My daughters especially like the new look,
like little bits of diamonds sparkling from the light.


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Friday, July 26, 2013

Free Vintage Illustrations: Little Girl Portrait, Young Girls Chatting


As I was sorting my vintage images yesterday,
I discovered this post that somehow never got published,
so I thought I would do so today.


I love this image of the little girl.
She looks sweet and thoughtful.






Here she is in a cleaned up version...





 and an antiqued look.











These little girls look like they are planning something or having a discussion of some kind.




Do you see the pail in the picture?




I used the pail in my header on this blog.


These are all from old books from the late 1800's
so enjoy using them for crafting purposes.

Have a great weekend
and thanks for stopping by.

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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Art Lesson: Using Q-tips to Paint Flowers.



Hey, there!
Welcome back.
 

I promised I would explain the simple process I used to add these Black Eyed Susans to my plant cart.

You could use this process for several different kinds of flowers like daisies or cone flowers...






but I chose the Black Eyed Susan because I love its simplicity and cheerfulness.




The household item I used to paint the flowers was Q-tips.
(I don't recommend using the generic brand of Q-tips.  The cotton is not as full or tightly compacted on the ends
and painting with them could prove disappointing.
Honestly, this is a guess on my part.
I just know that is how I feel about using them for their actual purpose.)

I used a couple of them with a color on each end,
but a color on each Q-tip is also a good choice if you don't want to be so careful not to get paint on yourself.

I seem to get paint on me no matter what I use, so I decided to just go ahead and use a different color on each end.

I used acrylic paints.


Starting with yellow, I dabbed the paint on and then made simple strokes to start each petal.





I went back on each petal and made a second stroke to make the petals a bit wider.






Using brown on the other end, I swirled a circle of it inside the petals.




Using a light yellow green, I then dipped another Q-tip...




and poked it into the brown, blending it a bit and then poking directly down into it to make a more spotted-looking middle.




Using another side of a Q-tip, I mixed a bit of the yellow and red to make yellowish orange
(I do generally try to keep my paints separate, but I had used the green for another project and made a mess of it, so I just used the palette as it was.
You, of course, are surely much neater, so please pretend this sea of green is not here).






I used the yellowish orange I'd mixed to dab on the yellow petals in areas where I wanted a bit more shading,
mostly in the center of the flowers.
(Do you see how it looks a bit more orange inside the real flower?)







I then set the orange Q-tip down and picked the yellow one back up.




I used the yellow to move the orange around some,
 to blend it.




Repeating these steps, I made more flowers, sometimes skipping the brown center to make a bud that was not fully opened.



Once there were enough flowers on the cart, I picked up a tiny brush and added stems and leaves.





Once everything was dried, I waited a day so the paint would be thoroughly sealed,
and I then applied a coat of Fiddes and Sons rugger brown wax to give it a slight antiqued look.





Q-tips made painting these flower petals easy, the cotton creating a texture that mimicked the flowers well for this simple crafting purpose.


Have you ever used a Q-tip or other household item to get a certain look in a painting?
I'd love to hear that I'm not the only one raiding the cupboards all in the name of art.


Thanks for stopping by and have a great rest of the week!


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Sunday, July 21, 2013

Flower Painted Plant Stand





 Paint can be used with different tools to get the look one is looking for.


I had this little cart plant shelf that had some water damage on the top and decided to paint it for a renewed look.




 After base-coating it with white, I decided on a flowered pattern and picked one to use as my model.







 I used a simple household item to paint the flowers.
Can you guess what it was?




If you come back in the middle of the week, I will share with you what it was
and the very easy process used to paint them that anybody can do
(my three year old wanted to try and I helped her paint one of them, which gave her much happiness).

I'll be sure to add a picture of the cart in the daylight, too, when the sun seems to make the flowers bloom brighter, both the painted ones and the real.


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Friday, July 19, 2013

Free Vintage Illustration: Sweet Milk Cow and Children.



All week long I have kept on eye on the pasture.
We have a cow who is due to have her first baby at any time.
She is our cow, and this is a first for us, well, for me.
My husband has seen and helped lots of cows giving birth.



Although we won't be milking our cow but just letting the baby have the milk,
I thought this old picture was dear.


I cleaned it up and made a couple different colors of it.




Here is a cropped down version of just the cow and kids.




Finally, because I wanted to use this scene on some cards,
I made a colorized version using my copic markers.


This picture is from a book from the late 1800's, so you are welcome to use it as you like.


I hope to see a sweet little calf out in our field soon.

Have a relaxing weekend
and thanks for stopping by!





UPDATE:
I created these cards using these images and thought I would share some ideas.













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Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Art Lesson: Tracing Paper Trick 2



A few weeks back, I started to talk to you about using tracing paper for your fine art.



 I mentioned sketching your image onto a piece of tracing paper until you get the basic form drawn on it the way you like.





When you have it sketched, rub soft -leaded pencil on the back
(or a charcoal stick as I did.)



Because the charcoal is messy, I wipe it off.  Only a little is needed to rub the image onto the final choice of paper.


I want to put this image in the upstairs bathroom, so I decided to paint it onto an old cupboard door that I had prepared with white and yellow paints.


I taped the duck image in place onto the cupboard door...

 and then traced it.





 When done tracing, I carefully pulled up the paper.



The great reason that this is a good thing to do
is because now that will leave the basic image of the duckling on my tracing paper for me to use again,
should I want to use it for another painting.





 Once I had carefully removed the tracing paper, I was able to start painting
 the cupboard door.  I used acrylic paints for this.





The piece is not quite done yet.  I found I was getting too sleepy and making mistakes,
so I set it aside and will finish it another night, but I wanted explain this process with these pictures.



I hope you are having a productive week;
thank you for stopping by.


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