Painted Rocks!

We have another snow day today--a good foot of snow fell last night, leaving school and activities cancelled. Bug is grounded from the computer, so he's been trying to get out of the house to go play on a friend's computer and I had lost all my Harry Potters in an ugly fried DVR incident (not naming names, Bill *cough*sputter*flicking eyes in the hubster's generally guilty direction*cough*) So I needed to come up with some sort of 'busy' activity to distract me from wanting, well, brownies. Not that we have any brownies in the house or anything at all resembling brownies, or even potential brownies (did I mention that I'm 17lbs down?? Yeah--go Skinny Rules!!) It's the wanting that drives me crazy. Not far of a drive...BUT! I digress...

I've had these awesome rocks that we found while playing at Horseneck Beach last summer, and, inspired by fellow artist, Denthe, who paints beautiful rocks and lots of other beautiful pretties, I thought I'd try my hand at painting up some myself! I had emailed Denise (Denthe) earlier to scope out her favorite paints and toys for painting the rocks, but as she's currently living in Australia, she uses paints I'd never even heard of, so I simply used the Americana and Delta acrylics I've had hoarded up for years. My friend, Dawn, (such a great name--I swear she's like my twin sister I never had--both beach addicts, snow addicts, rock addicts--she's me living in RI) asked for a tutorial, which there's not much to tutor about, but it made for an excuse to blog, and here I am!

The Rocks:

Okay, not a rock--just Loki being a ham...

Rocks!

First things first: you need to find rocks. Rocks are at the beach. You must take me with you because I always need to be at the beach. Give all your rocks a nice coat of gesso. One coat'll do. Gesso is a simple surface prep that helps your paints be more vibrant and also need less coats. Then, pick your paint colors--something bright and happy, preferably opaque (again, less coats, less work, more happy) Paint a nice base coat, let dry.

I've been lettering happy for the past year or so and I have words planned for each of these rocks above. Once my basecoat was dry, I used a white colored pencil to sketch my word Joy, then with a little thinned paint and a teensy brush to go over the letters, added some dots and swirls. Let dry, then added a little pink, a little rose (simply a circle with a swirl and a leaf attached) and shazah! JOY!

 

The top two rocks I'd painted some time last year, just playing with colors....

And, since I'm on here, I figured I'd post a few other things I've managed to get done lately:

 

A little painting of Sconticut Neck in Fairhaven

And these are a few pages I've done in Joanne Sharpe's Draw Your Awesome Year course:

 

My mantra page: Dream, Create, Love, Believe, and the Table of Contents--can't wait to fill all this stuff in!! Joanne's courses are so much fun--love her!!

 

I'm hoping to paint in the courage quote page after I get off of here (the kiddo just managed to escape and go play at his buddy's house for the rest of the afternoon...peace at last!)


And these are a few shots of Water St downtown, looking out to the harbor, and a few of the shops that I want to paint...next?...Though I might play with another painting first...?? We'll see.

 

So there you have it, happy pretty painted rocks and other silliness! Hope everybody's bundled up cozy and warm wherever you are! Time for cocoa and some Shahs of Sunset!

xoxo