Hello everybody! Ready for yet again a super easy DIY project with great result? Here we go! Let’s make a structured heart on canvas!

Contrast on a canvas

The great thing about this DIY project is that it just can’t go wrong! It’s so easy and it looks so ‘artsy’! 😉
That’s why I love doing this project in artclass too, because it will certainly make the children proud! And that’s so important, don’t you agree,

You can do this project for Valentines day or just when you want to teach them about contrast. I used complimentary contrast in this project!

Structured heart on canvas:

supplies for your structured heart on canvas:

• (little) square canvas
• gesso
• box of tissues
• brush
• oil pastels

Step by step your structured heart on canvas: 

1. put some gesso on your canvas.
2. glue the tissue papers on the canvas using the wet gesso! Be sure to make some structure!
3. don’t forget to paint over the tissue paper too.
4. let the canvas with the gesso and the tissue paper dry
5. color the background with yellow oil pastels
6. draw a red heart on the canvas
7. color the background with greens. Use blue and yellow to make other tints of green if you want to.
8. trace the heart with a black oil pastel
9. add a little white and pink if you want to. werk af met roze en wit oliekrijt
10. finished!

I really hope you liked this super easy DIY on canvas! If you make one of your own, please let me know, so I can come and take a look at it!
If you use it in class, let me know too! It works really well, I promise.
You don’t have to use red and green.
I think baby blue and pink will do great in nursery for example!

Bye for now!

Take care and see you all soon!

ps: have you ever painted with silk paper on canvas? That works great too! –> click here

I’m one of those people who likes to burn candles to get a cosy feeling in the house. Scented ones or tealights in lovely holders. Sometimes I use those LED lights, the ones that are safer when you’ve got kids in the house. But most of the time I go for the real thing. And when you burn a lot of those little candles you get a lot of empty cups too. Years ago I learned that you can use these to make decorations. Today I’ll show you how to make a christmas tree out of empty tealight cups.

Supplies for a Christmas tree out of empty tealight

• A lot of empty tealight cups. Not all the cups will turn out as nice when you flatten them. I wish I would have had some more so I could have chosen what ‘leaves’ turned out the best for my tree. But I still have some time left to burn some more candles and change the leaves I don’t like.
• A pepper foam cone
• pins
• pearls or other things to decorate your tree.

Step by step Christmas tree out of empty tealight cups

1. make leaves by folding two opposite sides of the empty cup to the inside. Flatten the leaves as much as possible. Select the most beautiful ones if you have enough of them.

   

2. start pinning the leaves at the bottom of the cone. Fold the leaves to so they don’t show the white cone.
3. the second row has to be pinned like roofing pavement. The point of the leaf pointing down should come on top of the overlap of two leaves of the first (or previous)  row. (see picture)
4. Go on like this until your cone is full. On the top I used white pins. For the other leaves the color doesn’t matter because the heads of the pins don’t show.

5. Decorate your tree with pearls or other decorations and give your tree a nice spot in the house!

Pin this Christmas tree out of empty tealight holders for later:

Crea-cross –  creative linkparty

This week the linkparty crea-cross has the prompt ‘fire’. Empty tealight cups fit that prompt, don’t they! 😉

If you have nice creative links to add, please do! you can use the blue button!

Take care and see you soon

Ilse

Did you know that you can paint with silk paper? Not as accurate as when you would use a brush and paint, but it does work. The paper and the colors often have a will of their own, but that makes it exciting for the artists.

How to paint with silk paper on canvas

Sometimes art projects go totally different in class than you intended. My eight graders were supposed to use this ‘paint with silk paper’ technique to make a background on their canvas to paint over. But when they were done they didn’t want to paint anything over them!

“No, Miss! What if we paint over it totally messes things up?” – They loved the results very much!

And sometimes a good teacher has to listen tot her pupils! We decided to leave them just the way they were!

What do you need to paint with silk paper on canvas?

• a canvas (duh 😉 )
• water
• brushes
• silk paper in different colors
• scissors
• old newspapers or other protection for your table
• protection for your clothes and if you want platic gloves for your hands.

How to paint with silk paper step by step

• Chose the colors you want to use. Think of a pattern, that makes it easier!
• Cut out the shape(s) you want to use in diferent colors.
• ‘glue’ the pieces on the canvas, using only water! This way, when the the pieces of silk dry, you can just swipe them off. The color will stick on the canvas.
• You can mix colors by ‘gluing’ different colors on top of each other.
• Let the ‘painting’ dry. Make sure to protect the spot you let the canvas dry! The pigment on the paper is a killer for untreated wood. Your hands will need a good saok!

Watch out!

• as I said silk paper, when wet, will get color everywhere! Protect your works space, drying space, clothes and hands!
• When dry little pieces of silk paper will fall off the canvas when you walk by because they are very light! So best you put it in a space where you don’t walk by it every 5 minutes if you don’t want to be pick up lots of pieces of paper! 😉

Paintining with silk paper is ideal to use in projects about shapes and color and even patterns.
The result will be surprising every time!
Little children can do this already, but the older ones will enjoy it too because of the surprise effect it brings!
I still think it will work well as a background too!

Pin ‘painting with silk paper’ for later: