Category Archives: painting

Painted Snails

This idea was inspired by the work of London street artist Slinkachu. Slinkachu finds snails roaming the streets of London, adds a little non-toxic paint to their shells, and returns them to their urban habitats unharmed and fully decorated. It’s all part of his rather humorous Inner City Snail Project where he pokes fun at the idea of “society’s relentless desire to appropriate every available inch of the cityscape for advertising, signage and even illegal graffiti.”

I’m not fond of snails because, well, they’re so slimy. And while I did eat them as a child, I’m working hard on trying to repress that memory. That means painting on a real, live snail is never going to happen. Children, however, are a fearless, inquisitive bunch. So if you happen to have some non-toxic paint and a few available snails in your backyard, it would be the coolest thing to paint them and watch them go about their business. I’ll just stick to the vacant shells. Continue reading

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Filed under animals/creatures, Art and Nature, painting

Painted Eggs

Painting eggs is a popular activity and tradition this time of year, and there’s no shortage of styles to explore. Think of intricate and detailed designs on Ukrainian Easter eggs, experiments with marbling, speckling and layering, wonderful little characters emerging from creative minds, and of course the unexpected. Artists provide inspiration for so many things, so why not for eggs?

The American artist, Roy Lichtenstein, was born in 1923 and was well known for his work in the Pop Art style. For a number of years, he adapted images from comic books and turned them into large-scale paintings filled with thick black outlines, primary colours, and lots and lots of dots. Dots, comics, and bright colours? Sounds like a winning combination to entice children into a little egg painting.

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Filed under Artists, eggs, painting, Pop Art, Roy Lichtenstein

Graffiti Inspired Bottles

Years ago, one of my school assignments involved creating a collection of textile designs, and painting one of them on a household object. I chose a wine bottle because it was readily available, and surely considered a household object in France! This time, I thought a graffiti theme would be fun, and included the image above to show you my source of inspiration, which I found painted on a garage door. If lurking about back alleys isn’t your thing, the internet is filled with great images for you to consider using.

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Filed under glass, painting

Resist Painting With Rubber Cement

Don’t you love ambiguous sentences. When this one accidentally happened, I started looking them up on the internet and had a really good laugh. Here were some of the better ones: The children are ready for eating. Milk drinkers are turning to powder. Stolen painting found by tree. Iraqi head seeks arms. Now back to rubber cement…

It’s always great when you can look beyond a product’s original purpose, and see it’s potential in other areas. Thanks to a couple of great websites (The Artful Parent and The Disarranged Studio), I now know rubber cement is much more than just an adhesive I like to pick at and pull once it’s dried and done its job.  It can be used as a resist, allowing you to create batik-like drawings, which magically reveal themselves once the rubber cement is removed.

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Splattered Greeting Cards

Most of us need a steady supply of greeting cards throughout the year for various occasions, but never as much as now. These Jackson Pollock style splatter cards are easy and fun to make, so let the assembly line begin.

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Filed under cards, Christmas, painting

Pumpkin Decorating: Beyond The Triangle Eyes

It seems once you enter the world of acrylic mediums, there’s no turning back. They’re highly addictive because they alter paint in such neat ways. They create distortions, crackling effects, and produce all kinds of textures and finishes. This time, I was lured into trying out Pouring Medium to create some wonderful drippy marbling effects on white pumpkins. It turned out to look quite cool.

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Filed under Acrylic Mediums, Halloween, painting

Hundertwasser’s Unusual Designs

The Austrian artist and architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, had a truly unique way of expressing himself. His work was filled with bold colours, organic shapes, and an obvious respect for nature. Some his architectural designs included rooftops covered with grass, deliberately uneven apartment floors, and always a preference for curvy lines over straight ones. He loved to experiment and often chose to make his own paints, while also exploring a variety of different supports for his work like wood and wrapping paper. He remains one of the most well-known contemporary Austrian artists, and his unique and unusual architectural designs and paintings continue to draw admiration today.

This mixed media project is about painting a building inspired by Hundertwasser’s style, filled with vibrantly coloured waves, curves, and irregular forms.

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Filed under Friedensreich Hundertwasser, mixed media, painting

Painting a Galaxy

Our universe is made up of billions of galaxies. Each one is a collections of stars, dust, gas and dark matter, and found in either elliptical, spiral, or irregular shapes. Images of galaxies can be truly breathtaking and mysterious, and will easily inspire children when making their own version. They’ll be painting, sponging, splattering, and using a glass bead textured gel medium to create a cool effect. 

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Filed under Acrylic Mediums, painting, space

Embedded

Many of us return from our travels with a few mementos and trinkets tucked into the corners of our luggage. They’re great to use in holiday themed scrapbooks and travel collages, but they’re also perfect for painting like Jackson Pollock. In his 1947 oil painting, Full Fathom Five, paint is thickly layered and drizzled in classic Pollock ‘drip’ style. Put your specs on, however, and you’ll notice a variety of objects embedded in the paint including nails, buttons, coins, and even cigarette butts. It’s a very cool way to immortalize your trip and display your memories. If you happen to be in Toronto, you can view this painting at the AGO until September 4th. After that, you’ll have to head to its home in New York.

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Filed under assemblage, Jackson Pollock, mixed media, painting

Suranimals

It’s spring, and little creatures are just about everywhere you look, hiding under piles of leaves, and resting under rocks and trees. Insects alone outnumber us, with an estimated 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10 quintillion) of them worldwide, making them the most successful life form on the planet. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate than by coming up with a few imaginary ones of our own, inspired by the work of artist Jerome Couëlle .

Couëlle is a french born artist, who lives in both Toronto and Vermont. He uses the word suranimals to describe the wonderfully imaginative creatures that inhabit his surreal paintings. You’ll find fish strolling about on legs, smiling holstein cats, and multi-coloured insects with hats. I invite you to discover his magical world, which will surely inspire you to create some whimsical creatures of your own.

“My paintings are dedicated to the animals whom I call ‘suranimals’ for they are all knowing, to the children, to the artists, to the poets, the writers, the musicians who refuse to be chained to what used to be, and do not accept the world as their reason has taught them, but have freed their eyes to be the true window to peer into infinity.” Jerome Couëlle

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Filed under Art and Nature, Artists, Jerome Couëlle, painting