Remember the seadbird mixed media collage I did here? Well I loved that thing so darn much that I couldn’t way to do a larger collage, I started this one right away…in NOVEMBER. OF LAST YEAR. Needless to say I hit a bit of a road bump & it’s been sitting half done on my craft shelf mocking me for the last 3 months. This past weekend I decided to jump back in & tackle it.
The entire painting is made of a canvas, acrylic paint, tissue paper & mod podge. I can’t really give a tutorial because a lot of it is just feeling out as you go along with the tissue paper but I can show some pictures of the painting along the way…
After painting the background I started making the trunk out of plain tissue paper & mod podge, I just twisted strips, dipped them in a little podge & shaped them to the canvas. After it was dry I painted it a few shades of brown & then added a some bronze highlights to give it a subtle sheen. Then came the blooms…
This is where I got stuck, I wanted to do hundreds of these little wads of tissue paper with the intention of them being tons of pink blooms. They ended up looking like pepto bismol spit wads.
That’s when I remembered I had this great hot pink tissue paper with a black toile design on it from Urban Outfitters. (they wrap your purchases in it, I didn’t actually buy it, well, not technically) Using small pieces & a TON of mod podge I squished it all around the branches until I had a nice full tree.The painting is based on this tree in our yard, it’s my absolute favorite. When it blooms it looks like the entire yard is sprinkled with cotton candy!
I absolutely love this! I just bought a small canvas to do a collage for my son's nursery (you know, only 6 months after he was born I'm finally decorating!). Anyway, I am so inspired by your tree trunk, I think I might have to give that a try!
That looks great! I love the hot pink
Speaking of art, this is a website that adds a professional touch to kids drawings. Maybe for when Sam gets a little older.. http://www.buzzfeed.com/mathieus/what-would-a-childs-drawing-look-like-if-it-8q4/
Very pretty, looks great and is more interesting that a flat painting.
Oh I'm right there with Liz, still trying to pull a nursery together for a 6month old, haha.
gorgeous!!
that is absoultely beautiful! I'd love to try something like that out sometime 🙂
That's so cool!
Love it! The texture is fabulous!
SO pretty! I love the texture too.
Gorgeous! On a side note, what kind of tree is that?
I love the tree in your yard. We live in a suburb of Portland, OR and there are so many of those trees here. Unfortunately in our yard the tree we have blooms a lime greenish color. I prefer the white or pink blooms, but it is fun to walk around the neighborhood and see other people's beautiful trees.
Can you show us how you painted the green part? I am not crafty… but I LOVE this… the background has me stumped though.
That is absolutely beautiful! I love it!
It's gorgeous!
I love those trees, BTW. Our neighbor has one and their yard is always so pretty.
Briana- You know I'm really not sure what kind of tree it is! It drives me crazy EVERY YEAR because I try to find out but just cant. Maybe when it blooms this year I'll take some up close pics and someone can identify it…we'll play 'name that tree' (:
Anonymous- For the background I just played around with different mixtures of lime green paint. Some with more white, some watered down, I like to get nice & messy & spread it with my hands, use a nice wet brush to blends different shades together…just kind of make it up as I go along. To get the dark rings I dipped the bottom end of paint bottle in green paint and stamped it. For the whiteish circles, after the paint was mostly dry, I took a wet washcloth and just rubbed off a circle with the tip of my finger under the washcloth. I just LOVE the way that came out…totally by accident by the way.
beautiful- I hate when projects mock you from their half done state. Go get 'em!
That's gorgeous! You did an amazing job!
This is stunning!!!!! You really did an amazing job!