Movable modern minimalist art

I love to rearrange things. That includes my art. This piece is made of lathing strips (thin strips of wood used when you plaster walls.

Here are a bunch of arrangements:

I like looking at an arrangement for awhile and then I move the painted strips around.

I plan on painting some more strips of wood. It really can be endless.

To make the base I simply made a base with the strips and put tiny nails on the vertical pieces of wood.
I did this a bit loose so the strips could move.

The bottom piece is glued in place.

Glow in the Dark secret inspiration word art

I am a big fan of little secret things in art, hidden messages, images, etc. I thought it might be fun to paint a secret message on two stenciled panels.  During the day they look like pretty decorative stenciled art and at night they glow with the inspirational word "DO".

I started out with some recycled square pieces of wood.
I painted them with two different shades of FolkArt paint- Cascade and Dutch Aqua.

When they were dry I taped the Floral Wallpaper and Nouveau Damask stencils onto the blocks and stenciled them using Waverly Chalk paint in plaster color.

 When the decorative stencil paint was dry I then laid the Waverly letter stencil over the decorative stencil (THIS IS IMPORTANT NOT TO REMOVE THE UNDER STENCIL!) and painted the letter with the glow in the dark finish paint. It doesn't show during the day but when the lights go out they show up.

How to airbrush solar lights

Over at Craft Gossip I have posted a fun and easy tutorial on how to airbrush plastic cups in a rainbow and add die cut words to make a colorful solar light sign.

50 Small Paintings-Done!

My New Year's resolution for 2015 was to do the 50 small paintings in the book Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 Small Paintings. It took me a bit longer to finish them all and even a bit longer to photograph them and write this post. But I should also add I built the shelves along the way to display them too!

 And me being me I did them all on recycled plywood I had leftover from a construction project.

I cut and sanded the plywood down to 5 inch squares.

Then I primed all the wood squares to get them ready to do each painting.

This was the first painting. Boy, that seems like forever-ago!

I can't tell you how fun this was to do! The directions are excellent and each painting is such a pleasure to paint.

I would end up working on several at a time as you need to allow the paint to dry in some cases so it's fun to start the next and jump back and forth. I highly recommend this book and this process. As you can see the collection looks great and you learn so much. I have already started to use the techniques I learned by painting these pieces in new original paintings.

Art Prompt: stripes and stencil combination

I am pleased to share with you one of my first paintings. I am so thrilled about the new book The Paintbrush Playbook: 44 Exercises for Swooshing, Dancing, and Making Dazzling Art With Your Brush which is filled with a wealth of great starting points to make art.

I used the gradient wash technique as my inspiration to make this background. The book calls for this technique to be done with watercolors but I simply tried it with acrylics in blue, white and just a touch of green to make blended horizontal stripes.

The second element to this painting was an eye chart made with a Tim Holtz Eye Chart Stencil. I like it the way it is with just these two  features but I may add more at another point.

More about the Quarry Book:

Sketch and paint right on the pages of this fun, modern, approachable practice and inspiration book focusing on one of the most popular drawing tools - the paint brush.
This playful, colorful exercise book is filled with fun, contemporary, beautiful illustrations by leading illustrator Ana Montiel.

The exercises explore mark making, patterns, geometrics, simple drawings, texture, and composition and includes professional tips and tricks that will enhance your skills as you work through the book. Each spread has one page filled with art examples and an exercise, with plenty of room to draw or paint right in the book. The Paintbrush Playbook is printed on high-quality, uncoated paper, allowing you to paint or draw anywhere that inspiration strikes.

Explore abstract drawing, pattern drawing, meditative doodling and more with this all-in-one learning and practice book. This is a great volume for artists, designers, doodlers, illustrators, painters, pattern illustrators, and zentanglers of all ages. You will not want to miss it!

How to transform a plain tank top for 4th of July with Simply Spray fabric paint

This could not be any easier!

I rarely wear white because I am always making something and some part of it inevitably gets on me. So when I have a white garment I see it as a canvas and what goes better on a canvas then paint!

Like last week's post I am in full on 4th of July decorating mode so I thought I'd try painting a tie die style flag on this tank top with a bit of red and blue Simply Spray fabric paint. I just free formed it! I love how the wrinkles add to the tie die effect.