Have you ever had to go to Babys'R'Us to buy a gift for someones baby shower? I have, and it was terrible. One of the most overwhelming experiences to date. I never knew there were so many options for onesies, wet wipes, diapers, baby nail clippers, and bottle nipples. Needless to say, I vowed that from here on out I would craft or paint my baby gifts and you should too!
Start with a 5"x5" wrapped canvas and paint a basic background color.
Next, draw a cute sketch on tracing paper. We are using tracing paper so that we can transfer the sketch to the canvas.
*Hint! if you fold tracing paper over the image you can see how changes would look. I did this to see how the elephant would look with a beach ball.
Place your sketch over your canvas. Once you find where you want the image to go, tape down the tracing paper a piece of painters tape.
Grab some transfer paper! I like Sally's from
Dick Blick.
Place the graphite transfer paper, with the darker side down, under your sketch. Use a fine pencil to "re-draw" your sketch. The force of the pencil forces the graphite on the transfer paper onto the canvas.
When you take the paper away you should have something like this:
Nifty huh?!
As you add color, think of it as a "color by numbers. By leaving thin lines as separators, you can go back with your outline.
Wait to add your outline until all the colors are dry. Then use a fine tipped brush and black paint to add an outline. Try this
Outliner (sometimes called a
Highliner brush) from
Dick Blick.
Outlining can be stressful and tedious. Probably a good idea to outline BEFORE you have a cup of coffee. Jittery hands make for jittery lines.
Pretty darn cute!
M.
