Silhouette Painting Tutorial

 

For Christmas I gave my dad a couple small paintings and a couple weeks later my mom was asking me how I painted them. Since they are a pretty simple painting project, I thought I would bumble my way through a tutorial for her.


1. Pick your Canvas. Normally, I do these paintings on square canvases, but all I had on had were some rectangular ones. Since they look good on either or, I chose one that was a 8"x10".

2. Pick your Colors/Paint.  Start with what you want your main outside color to be and what color you want your center to be.   For this painting I used three different color greens, black for the corners, and yellow for the center. For the type of paint, I used acrylic as it dries quickly.

3. Distribute Paint on Canvas.   Squeeze your paint onto the canvas in loose circles, with the darkest colors on the outer corners and the lightest in the center.  Remember not to let it sit too long between this step and the next or the paint will start to dry.

4.  Swirl your Paint! Honestly, this step is the most fun. Grab a big brush (the one I used was 3/4") and start swirling the paint outwards, starting from the center in a circular motion. After the first time around it should look something like this:

5. Smooth the Lines.  This is the most difficult part, getting the transition from light to dark to look smooth and gradual without any obvious lines.  The best way I have found, is to repeat the motion in step 4. Remember to constantly wash your brush to avoid streaks and obvious lines, especially when transitioning colors. You can work from the outside and go in (depending on if you want more of the green) or from the center outwards again (if you want the center part larger).

6. Let it dry!

7. Sketch on the Silhouette.  Once your background is completely dry, take a regular pencil and sketch out the shape you want for a silhouette.

8. Fill in the silhouette with Black Paint.  Time to paint over your lines and fill them in with black paint. It doesn't have to follow the lines exactly (you can erase those at the end) but its a good basis for your silhouette.

 9.  Erase your pencil lines.  Once your painting is dry, simply erase the leftover pencil lines with a basic white eraser and presto! your painting is finished.

Another New Years Post

I seem to make these around once a year. Something or another will remind me that, 'hey, I have a blog, I should use that'. The problem is, I don't ever know what to post that anyone other than myself would find remotely intruiging. But in the end, I suppose that doesn't really matter, since I started this for me, and therefore should continue it for me, as a place to express whatever I so desire.

This year however, I have a plan. Well a goal, a New Years Resolution of storts. It has nothing to do with blogging, but maybe if I blog about it as I go, I can kill two birds with one stone. The plan is to challenge me to be a better artist as well as be more creative (and maybe knock off a few of those projects I've been procrastinating on while I am at it). It goes like this...

Every month I get a new Medium/Theme.

Every week (or 2 weeks.... I can't decide how ambitious I want to be), I have to make a project that somehow incorporates that theme or medium.

This is the list of months I have and the ideas for them;

January - Marker
February - Fabric
March - Beads
April - Acrylic Paint
May - String/yarn
June - Paper (Newspaper/tissuepaper/etc)
July - Photography
August - flower/leaves/sticks
September - Watercolor
October - Gold/silver Leaf
November - Lace
December - Glitter

So far I've managed to make one drawing with Marker although it was less creative and more just practicing style. I saw a Stamp at Michaels Craft Store and thought the picture was super cute. Since I don't use stamps however, I snuck a quick picture then promptly went about re-creating it on an 11 x 15 sheet of paper when I go home, tweaking it to suit my tastes

And that's the plan. Now who wants to try this with me? 

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Sketches

I seem to cycle through hobbies, at least ones of the artistic nature. Lately I have been sketching again which honestly, is pretty strange, especially since it is all in my work notebook and done in ink. I have never been one to sketch much, even less in ink!

Nevertheless, ink seems to be my new medium. Here are a couple silly pictures from my notebook:

(Turns out Owls do not have tails like that, they are normally shorter, but oh well! Sketches are allowed to be whatever they want to be!)

And one photo of... a tree... (I have an odd obsession with drawing/painting trees) that I did with a pen, inkwell and paintbrush.

Return

I am not one to make new years resolutions, I never have been. But today I was sitting here and I realized its already the second month of 2012 and I have been ignoring a lot of things I enjoy. So here is my effort to start blogging regularly again and keeping whoever still reads this up to date with the happenings in my life.

So lets see, in the last six months I have...

1. Gone to Makeup School and graduated (I'm now a certified makeup artist!)
2. Got a new job (I work in a probation office for the government) 
3. Had my first craft show (Which went amazing and was so much fun)
4. Turned 26 years old
5. Tried to keep up with my etsy shop.
6. Shared time with friends and family.

And now for some pictures.

Photography by mju foto. (http://mjufoto.com/)
Makeup by Suzanne Becker (http://www.facebook.com/TingedExpressions)
Model: Leah

 

Photography by mju foto. (http://mjufoto.com/)
Makeup by Suzanne Becker (http://www.facebook.com/TingedExpressions)

Model: Georgia

 

Blown Away  

Poseidons Gift

Well there are a couple pictures at least. For more etsy listings please visit my Shop. For more makeup looks please visit my Portfoilo.

Now I solemnly swear to update this at least more often then once every six months...

Update

I've been ignoring this place again. But in my defense, life has had some MAJOR changes in the last few weeks and its been pretty hectic and a bit overwhelming in some aspects.

Most of you know that I signed up to go to Artists Within Makeup School. Well classes have started and I think they are going really well. Its harder then I thought it would be, but a ton of fun as well. We have our first test on Monday and I haven't studied for it and I REALLY need to do that because it won't be easy. Its all about skin care and skin diseases and knowing which ones are contagious, etc. As well as different skin conditions and what sort of products you should use with what. (Its actually quite interesting!). I think the best part about class though, is the fact that even if I am grumpy before class, by the time it ends I am always in a happy, chipper mood. The girls there are great and our teacher is awesome. Its a fun group and as I love doing makeup... what is there to be cranky about when I'm there?!

What some of you might not know is that I started a new job this week. I now work for the Solicitor General Department of the Government of Alberta. Its pretty intense and overwhelming actually, but really cool too. I am getting to know my criminal code of Canada better at least! I work in one of the parole offices in the city. Its neat, and of course all confidential, but interesting. I just need to learn a lot of things and my brain is a bit fried. Especially since I was left alone today already with no one to ask questions to! YIKES! I survived though!

What else is there to say....  I swear I have things to list in my shop... just no pictures of those things yet since I haven't had time to take any. I think I will try work on updating my shop this weekend along with trying to get my house organized.  I'll also stop rambling now.

Just a quick update for those who care!

<3

Red Hair and Makeup

I finally decided to do something with my hair other than the black and blonde... so what did I do? I went RED. Very red.

And since I think red and green look fabulous together, I did green makeup.


Eyeshadows Used:

Emerald by PureFusion
Jord by PureFusion
Bare it All by PureFusion

I also went and got my hair cut today, which I am not sure how I feel about. Its the first time I've actually gotten it cut professionally in about 2.5 years I think. I think I might have to fix it up though... hmm....

Spring Sale!

My etsy shop Tinged is having a sale starting April 30 - May 5th ! 10% everything in my shop (excluding shipping) as part of the Etsy Alberta Team Spring Sale! A whole bunch of shops from the teams are participating. You can see the list of all the shops and what they are offering  HERE

I am pretty excited. It's my first sale.

And on that note, have some pictures of some of the newest items!

Blooming Sunrise

 Ocean Sunset Earrings **SOLD**

Ocean Sunset Necklace

Wrist Cuffs!

Last night was product picture taking night! I never finished editing them all before I snuck off to bed, but I got a couple wrist cuffs done and posted!

Recycled Earth

Cream and Brass

I think my favorite part of these wrist cuffs is that all of them are made from almost entirely upcycled materials. Old bits of lace, an old purse strap, buttons from all over, etc. They are so much fun to make and use up all the scraps that I can never throw away because they always end up being useful! 

Ghost

The Adventures of Suzy and Sil

I feel like this should be a 'Part Three hundred' since we go on adventures so often. Seriously though, we have so much fun together dressing up like we are still little girls and going outside to prance around in high heels and take pictures of each other.... and freeze our butts off... get stared at... and have little dogs chase us because I've got fox fur on (I kid you not I just about had a heart attack when two Doberman's passed right after that. Thankfully they didn't seem interested!)... drink tea and pretend we are posh. 

Craft Fair with Handmade therapy

So this past weekend my sister, Hilda had her first craft show for her shop handmadetherapy. I went along for moral support and boredom preventer (because I am just that entertaining and charming). Despite the fact that there was a storm and therefore hardly anyone showed up, her table looked amazing and it was a ton of fun so here are a slew of pictures.

(the lovely shop owner)

Now go check out her shop since most of the things on that table are now up in her shop! Since she is a listing machine, unlike me who has a ton of things made and nothing actually posted recently. I should get on that! 

50's Inspired

I have to say that after starting with simple elastic type dresses, this one was MUCH more of a challenge. Really you don't want to look too closely at my stitching. I made a lot of mistakes. It was a lot of fun though and I do like the 50's vibe that it gives off.

One thing I did learn for sure though, is I really need a dress form. Since I don't use patterns (I tried that once, it was awful. Turns out I have no idea how to read a pattern!) I just cut things out how I think they should go and pin them... well basically on myself (please don't go thinking I stab myself with needles here... that only happens by accident) and trying to pin a dress behind your back is really quite difficult!

Piercings

I have ears full of holes and stuffed with metal. I got a new one on Sunday, the conch peircing (the hoop) seen above. Sometimes people ask me why I love piercings so much and last night I was thinking about it and when I first decided I loved them. Honestly, I can remember it clearly.

I was eight years old and I was taking the bus home. There was a girl on my bus named Suzy, she was a teenager and I thought she was the coolest person around (sharing the name might have helped) and she had an ear full of hoops. I was utterly fascinated and right then and there I decided that when I grew up, I wanted to have pretty ears like her.

Now I do.

And I love them.

All that Glitter is Gold

Gearing Up For Spring

Or maybe I am just dreaming. It certainly doesn't look very 'Springish' out there!

Regardless, by the time Spring does decide to show her face, I will have an arsenal of cute dresses to wear. That is my goal at least. Two done, fabric for a least two more to go!
 

Next up on the list to make: Blue dress with white Polkadots!

Also, can I just say that sometimes it is fun to be me? I think that if I have ONE positive trait, it is creativity and imagination. Intriguing, different things make me just want to create create create.

I know I have reiterated this probably too many times to count, but to me, makeup is an art form. While I love Canvas as well (Speaking of which I just bought a bunch of those and should really get to painting with actual paints!) I also love the human face. It has so much texture and depth and each is so unique. Yet at the same time you can take a face and completely alter the perception of it by playing around with a little makeup.

Now last night I didn't go to any great extremes, but I did have fun experimenting. Since I love red makeup and since I do looks for Pure Fusion Mineral Makeup I asked Chantelle if she had any. She didn't at the time, but what is absolutely amazing is, she thought that it was a good idea and wanted to try make some and let me be the tester! How amazing is she?

Actually that reminds me. One of these days I REALLY need to ask her how on earth she got into making makeup and how she does it! It absolutely floors me that she actually makes it on her own. So cool.

Right, back to the point. She sent me a bunch of samples and so I tried a few of them out last night with some other eyeshadows by Pure Fusion and came up with the following look:























Makeup Used:

Eyeshadows: Lemon (pure fusion), Tuscan Sun (pure fusion), Unnamed Red (pure fusion)
Eyelashes: Makeup Forever
Glue (for lashes and jewels): Duo Eyelash Glue


Is that all I had to say? I think so!

Green for St. Patricks.

Silly facial expressions aside, I had fun last night making the above pictured dress. It was really simple to make, and I didn't use a pattern or anything, just sort of winged it. I am pretty happy with the results! What do you think?!

Is it cute enough to do a tutorial over? Its certainly easy enough!!

<3

(P.S. For those of you that have tumblr, I started an account there to post random pictures and quotes of things I love and things I make. You can find me at http://tingedwords.tumblr.com/)

Inner Princess

Pastel Princess

I feel like its become habit for me to admit to falling behind on this blog. To be honest, most of the time I forget that I have it. At least I haven't forgotten how to be creative! In fact, I think my inner girly girl has come out to play lately since I seem to be in love with faux pearls, pink and lace.

And to make matters worse (or better depending on who you ask) I decided to play with tulle the other day to see if I could make a puffy, slightly tattered skirt befitting a ballerina.



(Don't worry, despite looks its not completely see through, there is a silk underskirt that comes to about mid-thigh. But I do want to make a lace overskirt for the whole thing... I think it would be pretty.... Also! please excuse my tummy, I was going to crop that out but now it seems like my photoshop has decided to quit working on me!)

Alright! Off to go finish my tea and do some work.

Next post: Try to remember to blog about all the tournaments I've been attending lately (Though I've deemed to give myself the roll as photographer instead of competitor. I'll leave the fighting to my dear husband who is actually good at it). In the mean time, have an amazing 'martial arts' type video.