Happy Tuesday! Today I’m going to share a technique that may already be familiar to some of you, but many new painters struggle with: double dip flower petals! Got some additional tips of your own for creating awesome double dip petals? Please share in the comments!!
Happy Tuesday! Today’s tip is for iPhone users who find the need to trim their photos from the background, whether it’s to create design menus, banners, business cards or other graphics for your business. I’m very proficient at Photoshop so I’ve always trimmed photos myself on my computer, however, my son showed me this awesome trick that’ll instantly trim photos for you! Check it out!
Happy Tuesday! This week’s tip might be more for beginners, but could still be worth a watch if you’re an experienced artist who sometimes has trouble with one strokes…today I’ll show you how I load up my flat brushes with a one stroke split cake!
This week I came up with a fun idea for some headband balloons that I have been calling “head huggers!” These are SUPER easy and fast to make, and there are SO many possibilities to mix them up with different characters! I put together a little tutorial, and I can’t wait to see what YOU do to take this idea to the next level! Be sure to share your own creations…we love to see your work!
Since the standard heart shaped cat prints that so many twisters love to use have been hard to come by lately, I thought I’d try something different! The cat heads I used on my kitty head hugger I purchased on Amazon. They come with cardboard ears and a roll of glue dots. So for parties, what I did was cut apart pieces of the glue dot roll so I had short pieces with two dots each, stuck them in place on the ears, and then when I need to attach them at a gig, I can just peel off the backing and stick them on. I think they look pretty cute, and a great alternative to the heart shaped cats!
So this is quite the blast from the past…last weekend my mom gave me two old photos (yeah, the kind you had to wait to be developed from real film) from my first ever hourly paid gig on my own!
I’m wearing two different outfits because this was a weekend-long gig! My mom has her acrylic paintings printed and published by a company who was then called “Wild Wings,” based in Lake City, Minnesota. Every year they’d hold a “fall festival” at their headquarters where people could come and meet the artists and enjoy food, fun and the gorgeous fall colors of Minnesota!
I believe this would have been 1995 or so, when I had just started painting, because I didn’t have my own set of paints yet. In the bottom right corner of the first picture you can catch a glimpse of my first kit, which my Dad built for me for this gig!
My first face painting job was at an amusement park, which of course being in Minnesota only ran into the fall and then closed for the winter. My boss at this job provided all the makeup we used (Kryolan), so I didn’t have my own kit. I can’t recall if he let me take some of his paint for this job, or if that was the first time I started buying my own paints. The first paints I bought were purchased from a family friend who owned a costume shop at the time, and carried a small assortment of Kryolan makeup.
This little box my Dad built was designed to hold 10 plastic film containers (Yup, the kind that held film canisters those old photos were taken with!), because that was what we had on hand at home that was small and water tight! It has a drawer pull for a handle on one side, and a plexiglas sliding coverI think he did a great job with this kit…I still have it to date! I painted it with the same bright, primary colors that I use in my business branding today!
Back then when I started, we’d stir up our Kryolan paints with water to get them more liquid-y, so these deep pots worked just fine for my cheek art. Today of course I prefer larger cakes that I just activate with water as needed.
Anyway, I thought some of you might get a kick out of this little blast from the past and my humble beginnings! Heck, I’m still in my humble continue-ings if you ask me…I learn new things every day from all of the artists I get to interact with now online, at conventions, classes and jams…my how far our industry has come!
Happy Tuesday! This week I’ll share with you my brush care best practices…this is how I have kept my brushes working their best for many years!
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