Drawing & Painting

 

EDIT: This posting was originally published March 9, 2009, but I thought it was worth moving to the top of the blog again! The kids loved these, and it is a project quite easy for children that are comfortable with a needle and thread to do. Make a dozen decorated for Easter, and a dozen for the play kitchen. 

This is the last egg project of the week. If you're not into making eggs out of roving, then try some of these Traditional Felt Eggs. VERY easy to make. Copy the pattern then you simply take 2 egg pieces, blanket stitch them together, leave an opening at the bottom, stuff and finish blanket stitching them closed. You can leave them plain or add embroidery or fabric paint to decorate. I did a combination. Although you can paint or embroider the eggs before you stitch them together, if you want a uniform pattern around the egg, wait until after it has been stuffed. The pattern includes 2 different sized eggs. The smaller eggs will fit in a standard egg carton. Perfect size if you'd like to make a dozen white or brown eggs for the play kitchen! There are no additional directions since it is very straightforward, but the pattern is available in the FREE Open Pattern section. Enjoy!

FYI... If you can't tell from the photo you are either being very kind or I did a remarkable job of camouflaging... I really am puff paint challenged! I always felt like my embroidery flowed like paint... thank goodness I was wrong! I was all thumbs as I tried to transfer my mental image to the eggs. So... there are smudges here and blobs there. Alas, not perfect, but the colors are still lovely, right? And if you squint your eyes just a wee bit, you can hardly notice the imperfections. Ah, we all need to be humbled occasionally!

So, last time I told you about handprints on the ceiling of my preschool and how hard it was for me to leave them. When I decorated our playroom here, I wanted my grandbabies' handprints included. I decided I was going to print them on a cloud. Then, my ever brilliant Tim, suggested we cut clouds out of plywood, so when we eventually move, we could take them with us! Smart guy, right?

To make the clouds, begin by drawing a lofty cloud on paper. My clouds are approximately 42" x 28". To make a pattern use butcher block paper or tape pieces of newspaper together. I have not included a pattern of a cloud, because to be quite honest, it is far easier to simply sketch one than to try to enlarge a pattern. If you need inspiration, look at one of my clouds in this post or in When the Cows Come Home.

After you have drawn a cloud, cut it out and trace around the outer edge on 3/4" plywood. Round the edges by sanding. (If you don't have tools to do this yourself, make a pattern, buy the plywood, and offer to make a pan of brownies for anyone that can help you cut it out! It really is a fast project.)

After it is cut out, begin by painting the front and edges a light to medium blue. After it is dry, using a large brush, paint the cloud white, using a swirling stroke. Begin at the outer edge, and work inward. It's okay to let a little of the blue show through here and there. It will give more dimension to the cloud. Use should only need one coat of white paint. I used a satin finished paint. After your clouds have dried, they are ready to put handprints on.

Here is what we do with our clouds. We have 1 cloud for each grandchild. Every year in January we add a new handprint. Since Michelle has 3 children, they have 3 clouds. Instead of putting all their handprints on individual clouds, we rotate through the clouds every 3 years, and each year all three of the children put their handprint on the same cloud. We figure we will have them do this until they are 14 years old. When they have all turned 14, we will have 3 clouds, each with 14 sets of handprints, with each sibling having their own cloud to keep. Besides taking their handprints, on the back of the clouds, we write their age at the time of the printing, and list their favorite activities, toys and color, and include their clothing size... just for fun!

Tim and I have 5 children. So far only 1 of them has given us grandbabies. We plan to continue this tradition as each child starts their own family. As you can well imagine, we will have very cloudy walls! Although clouds fit well into the theme of our playroom, you can use this same idea with any number of shapes. 

I think the grandbabies will love these when they are grown up and off on their own. What a special keepsake!

(BTW... I blobbed out the children's real names... looks a bit messy! Should have had Michelle Photoshop them I suppose but you get the idea!!!)
 

Materials:
Heavy Water Color Paper
Contact Paper
Plastic Wrap
Sheet of Card Stock
Watercolor Paints
Glue
Glitter
Angel Pattern

Print off the Angel Pattern I drew (or design your own).
Trace the angel onto the contact paper, flip the angel and trace it again.
Cut out the contact paper angels, peel the paper backing and place the angels, facing each other onto the center of the watercolor paper approximately 3" apart.

Paint over the entire page with watercolor paints in sky colors. You can paint over the contact paper but try not to get it too wet near the edge or it may bleed under the contact paper.

Once the entire page is painted, you may need to damped the whole page again with a squirt bottle.

Cover the page with wrinkly plastic wrap. This will make an interesting, marble like texture.

Remove the plastic wrap (we were able to reuse the same piece of plastic wrap for all 3 paintings).

Let the painting dry. Once it is completely dry you can peel off the contact paper angels.

Paint a 1/4 piece of card stock in contrast colors (yellow, orange reds... the girls had a hard time following those directions... lol).

When that dries, trace the banner image onto the painted card stock and cut it out. (You could use a piece of yellow or orange construction paper instead).

Write REJOICE on the banner. Then glue it down on your painting so that it just touches each of the angels hands.

Squeeze out glue in an oval shape over the angels' heads.

While the glue is still tacky, sprinkle with glitter. Shake off excess glitter.

Hang up your angel painting.

The kids created these beautiful Angels Rejoicing Paintings this week. I got the basic idea for the watercolor technique from Gail at ThatArtistWoman (I love her blog for kid art ideas) and from that I developed our own unique holiday related theme project. This project took us two days and incorporated several of my kids favorite things... painting and glitter!

Check out the Watercolor Angel Painting Directions here or in our Kids Crafts database.

Saturday night is our 19th Annual Pumpkin Carving Party... I'll tell you more about that later. But when the decorations were unpacked, a devastating discovery was made. Mice had gotten into one of the boxes and ate one of the family's most beloved decorations... our Gourd Ghost Sculpture. I really find it hard to believe it could have been THAT tasty. I made the sculpture 25 years ago! But, alas, everyone of the little Ghosties was chewed on, leaving behind unrecognizable piles of gourd shell, and, little piles of, well, let's just say little reminders that we had been visited by mice!

I was heartbroken. This would be the first Pumpkin Carving Party that we'd celebrate without the watchful eyes of our little friends. I knew that I really didn't have time to remake the sculpture... what with the party 2 days away and out-of-town company coming. But, sentiment got the better of me. I told myself, if I went to our local craft stores, and could find actual dried gourds, not the Styrofoam type, I'd find time to make another sculpture. Well, at Michael's I found some real, dried gourds. Granted, they had been painted, and true, they weren't the shape of my old gourds, but I hadn't qualified my personal pact, so, this afternoon, instead of the numerous other jobs I should be doing, I remade our Gourd Ghost Sculpture... and wrote up a tutorial to boot. So, if you're still looking for more Halloween projects, and can store it away from mice in the off season, you might want to make your own sculpture. Directions for the Gourd Ghost Sculpture can be found HERE or with our FREE Patterns. Enjoy! 

I began this project 25 years ago. No, that's not true. I finished this project 25 years ago, then, sometime in the past year, the mice in my garage thought it would be great sport to eat my nearly petrified gourds, and I was left with a trunk with wires glued to it, and memories of my old Ghostie friends! Obviously, this project comes with a warning. If you make it... store it in a manner that mice cannot munch!

Materials:
1 awesome and gnarly looking piece of wood
coat hangers or thick wire
wire clippers
hot glue gun
small gourds, dried
white paint
black paint
spray sealer (optional)
drill with drill bit the diameter of your wire
spiders, spider web and cheese cloth
 
Directions:
1] Find a cool piece of wood and cut it to size. (Make sure the bottom cut is level. The piece of wood should be able to stand up without tipping over.) Mine is about 18" high by 12" wide. Downed trees in the woods are great (that's where I got mine), but you could also make a really neat sculpture out of driftwood.

2] Cut up wire to different lengths. The wire needs to be long enough to fit the length of your gourds plus additional length to hold it away from the trunk. This is a "plan as you go" thing. Look at your wood. How many ghosts will it hold? Where do you want to position them? When you've made some of those decisions, drill holes into the wood about 1" deep and at a 45 - 70 degree angle... whatever seems right for your gourds. Slip the wire into the trunk and hot glue in place. (I laugh every time I look at my trunk. This was the first time I used a glue gun, some 25 years ago. A little over kill!)

3] Paint your dried gourds with 2 coats of white paint. (NOTE: In a pinch, you can use fresh gourds, but you will need to poke holes in them to mount them to your sculpture. THEY WILL rot. So you will not be able to save the sculpture.)  

4] Using black paint, add eyes and a mouth. If you would like to give them extra protection, you can spray them with an acrylic sealer.

5] When the gourds have dried, drill a hole in the bottom of the gourd. Use a drill bit the size of the wire. (NOTE: I do not often recommend brands of anything, but I have to sing the praises of my Fiskars Hand Drill. It is definitely up there with my "must have" tools in the craft room. Easy to use, sturdy, and hand powered. It's small and easy to use on small projects. I LOVE IT!!!)


6] Slide the gourds on the wires. If a wire is too long, simply cut off the extra length.

7] Add spider webs, spiders and squares of cheese cloth to give a spooky feeling!

 

Note about patterns: We are sharing patterns we have designed and made for our own children, families and friends. Every effort is made to share information in a clear and accurate manner. We offer preemptive apologies for any mistakes that may be made. Please let us know via comments or emails if you stumble upon a mistake or if you stumble upon a mistake or if you encounter directions that leave you scratching your head! We will rectify the situation as soon as humanly possible!

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What happens when you combine a compulsive doodler, orange paint and an hour long phone conversation? A gaggle of pumpkins, of course! Seriously, I'm on the phone and there was my cheese box of paints sitting next to me. I was playing with the paint bottles... because compulsive doodlers are also world class "fidgeters". So, I'm popping the top of the orange paint and some squirted out. While cleaning it up with some scraps from the wastebasket, I noticed I got some on my thumb. Naturally, I needed to clean my thumb (BTW... all the while talking on the phone) so I went to rub it off on scrap paper, and although smeared, left behind a thumbprint... true story. Well, you can imagine where it goes from there!

While on the phone, I made a garland, a wreath, and a brick wall of pumpkins, and, with the help of a thin point black magic marker and a brown and gold Sharpie, turned those little pumpkins into Jack-O-Lanterns. So, this really isn't a tutorial, per se, but rather the sharing of a process. (BTW... a craft blog is the ONLY place in the world where I would share this story, believing many of you have done the same type of random crafting... in one way or another. Crafters do that, right?) Anyway... what to do with the Jack-O-Lanterns? Put them on invitations, make note cards, decorate a brown sack lunch, decorate a picture frame OR just amuse yourself during an hour long phone conversation. Here are the totally simple directions!

Materials:
Orange paint or ink
black and brown markers - thin or ultra thin points

1] Get paint or ink the fingerprint portion of your thumb.
2] Press your thumb on paper.
3] Wait for the ink or paint to dry completely then draw on faces, stems and lines. 

That's all there is to it. Got kids around? Super great and easy craft to do with them. Although this is a humble craft indeed... enjoy :) 

At Christmas, Tim bought me a lovely Owl necklace. It was a bit of a theme this year… all the girls in the family got owl necklaces… which has no bearing on today's project EXCEPT… my necklace came with the cutest little 8 paged booklet. Taking it apart I realized it was a standard 8 1/2" x 11” piece of paper, folded, with just one little cut. Since that time I’ve made a million of these. I keep them in a basket, along with some colored pencils, and whenever the wee ones want to make a mini book, they are good to go. They are also great to keep tucked in your bag as a ready amusement for children, or to jot down a few notes for yourself. Another nice thing about them, since only one side of the paper is seen, you can reuse printed paper that would have just been thrown away, into useful pads of paper.

This is definitely a project suitable for children to make, just as soon as they can fold a piece of paper neatly. I’m including the directions on how to make your own Teeny Tiny Booklets HERE. I like to glue the ends of the paper with rubber cement but this is not necessary. This will probably be the fastest craft I ever share on Wee Folk Art, but it is skill well worth learning. It is fun to use some of the specialty papers with subtle designs on them, and you could even cut convert used wrapping paper into little pamphlets. Enjoy!

It's summertime. Time to head outside and find a shady patch of grass to stretch out on. It's also a great time to grab your crafting supplies and "while away the hours" drawing birds and butterflies, clouds and clover. Although I like the roll-up colored pencil holders, I personally am too impatient to take the pencils in and out of their snug little niches. If you look at my own crafting table, pencils and pens, rulers and scissors, are all sticking out of containers making easy access and storage. 

So, I wanted to create a very simple, but organized, take-along craft basket that was sturdy, easy to use, and earthy. I began by finding a cute basket at Joann's. I was looking for a small basket, that was sturdy and deep enough to stop crafting supplies from spilling out if being carried by a wee one. I only buy baskets when they are 50% off, and I got this beauty for $4.00. I was pleased!

To make the pencil holders, I hit my toilet paper roll stash, slathered them with crafting glue, and wrapped twine around them. For a more detailed and pictorial view of wrapping the pencil holders, check out our tutorial HERE. After the toilet paper rolls were dried, I threaded the twine into a yarn needle, and simply tied them to the side of the basket.

Now, load the craft basket up with your favorite supplies, and hit the great out-of-doors. Enjoy!  

I woke up this morning with the flu bug that Fairy brought home earlier in the week and this inexplicable desire to design a Matryoshka doll! I'm not sure if the 2 are connected, but between naps and blowing my nose, I managed to design this Posy Peasant Babushka Doll. I'm not sure to what ends yet... but I know I want to make something 2 AND 3 dimensional. (Hmmm... perhaps a new doorstop???) And, just because I thought the drawing was so cute, I watercolored it! (Why aren't I napping?) 

I am sure the first thing I'll do is to make this up with felt, but it would also be adorable with calicoes... perhaps an applique on a skirt. And I do want to create the "nesting" aspect of the dolls, so I will design matching smaller dolls. Anyway, the couch is calling to me, so off I go! Look for the pattern for this Babushka doll in the next couple of days.