Painting a Focal Wall

My little sister wanted to redo her room, so of course, I took on that task! She liked black, white, and light blue; and although she wanted the majority of her room to be light blue, we decided to make a focal wall that would really WOW people. We searched on the internet until we found a black and white pattern that we liked, and then, I got to work.

It wasn't hard to paint this pattern (although it looks pretty difficult). Once we found the pattern on the internet that we liked, we printed it on a transparency, then used an overhead projector to shine the pattern onto the wall. ((The rest of the room hadn't been redone at this point, that's why the walls are still brown with pink curtains...so ignore that.))

Once the transparency was shining on the wall (you can see a little bit on it in the bottom left corner of the above picture), I traced the pattern, moved the projection, traced the pattern, moved the projection, traced the pattern......(I think you get the picture). It was a long process! But I did that until I had the pattern traced on the whole wall.

After I had traced the whole wall, I went back through and painted in the pattern using black acrylic paint. Acrylic paint seemed easier to use because it was a little thicker than regular wall paint. We left a strip in the middle because she wanted her name on the wall, so we decided to use the light blue color of her other walls to paint her name in a black stripe.

Ta-Da! The finished focal wall! Her name was painted in the same way as the pattern. We found a font we liked, printed it on a transparency, and traced it on the wall. Altogether, we were pretty satisfied with how everything turned out, and it definitely ended up being a WOW wall, just like we wanted!

Woman- Artist's Pens

I drew this woman while I was practicing one day. The faded edges are from Instagram.

3 min- Oil Pastel Figure Drawing

This was a drawing I did in one of my classes. We had 3 minutes to complete it.

Longboard Painting

One of my friends asked me to paint the bottom of his longboard. That was exciting! Painting a longboard was something I had never done before.

His thoughts were...sunset and cross silhouette. So after looking at some reference images, I ran with it!

Here are some pictures of my process. (Sorry about the poor quality of these pictures, but it was all I had)

First I roughed the board up a tiny bit using some sand paper. This gave the paint something to adhere to. Then I painted my design using craft acrylic paints. Then finally, sealed it with a can of spray polyurethane sealer.

The design was simple...but I loved the finished product!

About Me

Well hey there! My name is Kristin. I am currently going to college to be an art teacher, and through my schooling I am learning so much new information!!! I think it's an understatement to say that I have a passion for anything "artsy". I love to draw, paint, and take pictures, but lately my new obsession has been repurposing thrift store finds. I hope that you find my blog interesting, exciting, and inspiring; and thanks so much for taking the time to visit!

((I am not a writer...nor do I ever want to be one. So, if you wouldn't mind, look past my thousands of grammatical errors and focus on the content! ;) Thanks!))

Painting with Light

I learned a lot of things in my Digital Imagery class this past semester and one of my favorite things was how to "paint with light". It's actually a lot easier than it looks! In the manual settings on my camera, I changed the exposure length to 10 seconds. Then in a dark room, after pressing the shutter, I took a flashlight and wrote 'love'. There are so many different things you can do with this, and it looks so much more complicated than it actually is!

Nikon D3000--ISO 200--f/3.8--10.0s

Recycled Magazine Wall Decoration

This project is a wall decoration made out of old magazines (ignore the clutter on my table beneath it). I was gonna call this a "wallflower" but I think it looks more like a sun...either way...it's a great way to use up some of those old useless magazines that everyone has lying around their house! Also, like most of the projects I do, it's fairly simple to make! 

Kelly, a friend in my design class made something a lot like this, only hers was much cooler with styrofoam and mirrors as the center! (So credit goes to her for this one)

Supplies Needed:

• Scissors
• Tape
• Old Magazines (that you don't mind cutting up)
• Modge Podge

Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures while making this, so I will do my best at describing it (and just to warn you...I'm really bad at describing things!)

To make the rays:

Tear a page out of your magazine and cut it in half down the middle of the page. Depending on how long you want the rays, you can cut it lengthwise or widthwise. Then roll the sections into tubes, taping them to keep them from unrolling.

To make the center:

Tear pages out of your magazine and fold them so you have long rectangles around 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide. Coil these up into a circle. Then when one you get to the end of a magazine, tape another one on and keep rolling!

Once you have your circle as thick as you want to make it, hot glue the end, and cover the whole thing with modge podge to seal it.

To attach the rays to the circles I just used a little hot glue.

And there you have it! I know, I know, the explanation was a little confusing, but it's really not that hard to make, so experiment and have fun with this one, chances are you've got plenty of magazines to spare! ;)

Stipple Drawing done with Markers

White Charcoal on Black Paper

This drawing was done with white charcoal on black paper. So, essentially, you have to change the way you normally draw. Instead of shading the most in the darkest areas of the picture, those are now the areas that are shaded the least. Reversing my way of thinking really pushed me outside my comfort zone, but I love how the finished product turned out.