Love Bird Painting

Here's the Love Bird Painting I recently made for our Valentine mantel.

Let me show you how I did it.

First of all, I had a scrap of 18 x 24 mat board handy (you could use canvas, watercolor paper, poster board, any size will work but since it's for the mantel, I went bigger). Then I applied a layer of gesso. I let it dry.

Then I painted on a little light pink. Then I printed objects like packing bubbles. Just use a paintbrush to brush the paint on the packing bubbles.And press on to the paper like a stamp.

I bought all these fancy tools but the best ones were the packing bubbles and the triangular sponges that people apply makeup with. I also tried doilies (fabric ones, I bet the paper kind would have been better). I found the thinner the stencil the better the print. And never fear....I got all of my acrylics from my stash or they were 99 cents at Joanns.

Then around the edge I applied a darker pink color. Let it dry for about a minute and spritzed it water.

The  I used a paper towel to blend the 2 paint colors together (creates texture).

After that dried, I stenciled some figures on there (see my post on my One Little World Journal/Scrapbook for more tips on textures).

Then I found a clip art example of a bird cage with some love birds. I used a thin sheet of sketchpad paper (newsprint, without the print), to draw half of it.

Then I traced half of the birdhouse on the painting. Then flipped it over and traced the other side so it was symmetrical.

Just love the textures of this painting.

Then I added the birds and painted it using black paint.

Then I added a plain black frame and glass (as seen at the top of this post).