The snowfall here in Minnesota the past couple of days has been MAGICAL! My favorite kind…the thick, fluffy kind that falls slowly like a snow globe and sticks to the branches, making everything look like a fairy land! Here are just a few pics I took in my yard:
Today felt like just the perfect photo backdrop for me to paint a little snowball juggling snowman idea that I drew in my sketchbook during my paint jam earlier this month!
If you follow me on social media, you’re already way ahead of me here! It just dawned on me that I have failed to include my blog in the locations where I’m now sharing tips every Tuesday! SO, I’m going to take this opportunity to introduce my new “thing” to my blog readers here and get you all caught up!
Basically, every Tuesday at 10:00 am central time, I am going to be sharing some sort of tip with you! It could be face paint related or something for other art forms like balloons, glitter tattoos, etc. It could be a business tip. Some might be mind blowing, some might be “well duh, I already knew that!” But my goal is to share as many tips as I can come up with, and I hope that at least a few of them help you out in some way! I’ll try to keep them roughly 2 minutes long, give or take, but it’ll depend on the tip of course. Quick and helpful is my goal!
I started on Tuesday, November 22nd so there are a few already out there. I’ll post them below! And from here on out, I’ll try to remember to post these here on the blog so you don’t miss any if you are a blog subscriber! You also should be able to find these on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.
SO, watch, subscribe, and enjoy! Please do comment if you find any of these useful…it helps me to know if I’m sharing good stuff or not! 😉 And if YOU have a great tip to share, send it our way! I’d love to share your tips too, and of course give YOU credit!
Want to offer some googly eyes to your designs but don’t have a lot of them on hand? You can make them stretch twice as far by making your characters WINK! 😉
This little ghost is SUPER simple and only requires ONE googly eye!
Step 1:
Using a round brush loaded with your favorite blue (I’m using FAB Shimmery snow petrol!), outline the curves of your ghost, and then paint around that for a background.
Add some stars! I’m using my Ooh! Star Flip stencil and a finger dauber loaded up with yellow. First I lay down the stencil and use a makeup remover wipe to wipe away the blue, then apply the yellow paint, and finally tap on some yellow glitter before removing the stencil. This gives me crisp, clear, bright yellow stars that are glittery only ON the stars!
Step 4:
Fill in the ghost with white. I’m using Wolfe white and a round brush. Add a little dimension with some light blue if you wish!
Step 5:
Clean away a spot where your google eye will go. I use mini daubers to do this but a wipe works too, or a clean brush. Using a small round brush loaded with black (I’m using Wolfe black), outline the design and add the mouth and winking eye. Add a little tongue if you like!
I’ve been on a google eye kick lately! Here’s a fun bat design that uses “human-style” google eyes! These eyes have fun colored irises, as opposed to your typical google eyes with just a black “pupil.”
Step 1:
Load a 3/4″ angled or flat brush with a pink & purple split cake. I pulled the neon pink & purple from my Superior Sunset base blender. With purple on top, paint the outlines of the wings.
Step 2:
Use a fluffy brush to blend the pink down over the eyes, and feather the purple. I love using my Cameleon large blending brush for this!
Step 3:
Paint some pink for the insides of the ears. I left a couple little tears in the edges of his ears!
Step 4:
Add a little texture to the inside of the wings. I used my mini stencil kabuki brush and purple with a HAS 5701 stencil (from the “Alive” set) to create a little texture, and wrapped it around and under my eyes a bit.
Step 5:
Using your favorite round brush and black, paint the bat’s head, tuft of hair, and wings.
Step 6:
Using a small round black loaded with white, add a smile, fangs and highlights. I also used a halftone stencil to fade the head onto the bridge of my nose. Finish it off with google eyes applied with Pros-Aide II, and some fun chunky glitter! I used “Valley Girl” Pixie Paint!
It’s OCTOBER! We face painters LOVE October for obvious reasons! I’ve been getting my usual flood of requests for painters at events this month and am doing my best to fill them, but if you happen to be looking for a face painter for YOUR event, make sure to plan ahead! We start booking Halloween events up to a YEAR in advance! So, if you think you may be having a Halloween party even next year, make a note in your calendar at least as early as June if you’d like to book the BEST before their schedules book up!
Now that my public service announcement is aside, I thought I’d share this fun and simple pumpkin design with you! I LOVE to play with google eyes, and they look especially fun when you mismatch the colors and/or sizes.
Step 1:
Load up a 1/2″ flat brush with a red/orange/yellow split cake. I used my TAG Dragon cake, and only loaded the yellow-to-red section. Paint the curved outer edges of your pumpkin, then repeat the strokes working your way towards the center. Make sure that you are consistent with which side is your shaded side (darker red) and lighter side (yellow) to get the best dimensional effect! I am assuming my light is coming from the upper right side here.
Step 2:
Use the lighter yellow corner of your brush to fill in the center area of the pumpkin.
Step 3:
Using a mini kabuki brush and an Ooh! fall leaf wrap stencil, surround your pumpkin with a variety of fall leaves! A mix of yellows, oranges, red and brown add some fun variety.
Step 4:
Load a small round brush with yellow and add a smiley mouth. I like to dab on a little yellow glitter here. Don’t worry about outlining teeth, you’ll whip those out in seconds in the next step!
Step 5:
For the teeth, just load a small 1/4″ flat brush with orange, and paint on three short strokes over the top of your mouth!
Step 6:
Outline the pumpkin with black and add a few highlights. I love Wolfe black and white for all of my outlines and highlights! Use a face wipe, Q-tip or clean dauber to remove paint on a couple spots where the eyes will stick. Apply some Pros-Aide II to these spots, and the back of your google eyes, let dry clear and stick. I use Pros-Aide II for gem clusters (original formula for glitter tattoos) because it is designed to break down easier for removal! Top. it all off with some sparkly Vivid Gleam glitter cream…I used “Trick-or-Treat!”Harvest!”
The lake outside of my studio may still be frozen, but spring is technically here, haha! As I wait for those elusive 50 and 60 degree days in the extended forecast to reach me, I’ve decided to do a little Easter and springtime painting! Not only to get into the springy mood myself, but to warm myself up for my Easter gigs which start this weekend! In honor of spring’s inevitable return, today I wanted to share this simple little eye design…a bunny peeking around some eggs!
First, do a quick “sketch” outline of the eggs and bunny. I used a small, round brush with a little white.
Next, fill in the eggs with whatever springy colors and patterns you like! Try stripes, polka dots, zig zags, or just solid color! Experiment with metallic paints if you wish! I used my Cameleon small blending brush to blend the colors of the egg over to my eyelid.
With a round brush, fill in the white of the bunny. Add a few pink details inside the ears and the nose. I like to use a little light blue to add shading to white objects…it gives them a little dimension and a bit more color!
Outline the design with a fine, round brush and your favorite black. I like Wolfe black for my outlines. I also used some tiny dotters to add polka dots to my eggs here!
I finished off the design with some “Capricorn” glitter creme by Amerikan Body Art…one of my favorites for the bright, cheery colors, and it blended perfectly with my colorful polka dots!
I have another fun Easter design that I will share soon, and hopefully some more as my schedule allows over the coming week! Stay tuned! Thanks so much for stopping by, and happy painting!
Lately I’ve been having some fun painting some lesser known Christmas special/movie characters and posting them on our Facebook page! Here are a few I’ve done so far…there are more coming next week, so make sure to like and follow us on Facebook for more fun inspiration to come!
“Pink Nighmare!” from A Christmas Story – painted on myself“Charlie-in-the-Box” from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – painted on myself! (Using some Ooh! Snowflake stencils!)“Hocus Pocus” from Frosty the Snowman – painted on myself! (Using some Ooh! Snowflake stencils!)“Abominable” (Buble!) – painted on my son Toby! (Using some Ooh! Snowflake stencils!)
Okay, this one below is not a particular movie character, however, it was an idea that came out of the Charlie-in-the-Box design with the pom poms! I thought they would make cute snowballs! 😀
Here are a few of the products I used for the snowflakes in many of these designs…I love the short kabuki brush for detailed stencil designs, and am totally in love with these Ooh! Snowflake stencils!!
It’s been one busy month here at Paintertainment with window painting! Besides the three Dunkin’ Donuts locations I have the pleasure of painting seasonally throughout the year, I also did an interior job, painting some conference rooms in an office building! So much fun…here are some photos and movies of what I’ve been up to so far this winter!
Dunkin’ Donuts…all set for winter!
This was the Chaska, MN Dunkin’ Donuts’ location…I did the top painting in the fall, and had designed it so that I could easily remove just the fall foliage, to update it for winter. Thankfully the lettering all looked just as pristine as the day I put it up, so it is able to hang on through another season!
Here is a time lapse video of the Chaska Dunkin’ location…this one is on two sides of the building…
Below is the Rogers, MN Dunkin’ location! This design was SO much fun! I love this client…she really lets me just have creative freedom and always chooses something super fun from my sketches. I love incorporating donuts into their designs! The previous fall design had a fun owl design on the lower panes, so we kept the text again here and I updated it for winter with some ice fishermen! This design definitely screams “Minnesota” as we love to ice fish here, and I was sure to paint a few of my favorite fish to catch here: sunfish, walleye and bass!
This window was the hardest physically for me to paint. It was supposed to be 50 degrees this day, however, it only ended up getting to 37 while I was painting. This is all fine of course if it’s sunny and not windy…I painted Chaska in 37 and sun and didn’t even need a coat. But, for whatever reason, this day I was absolutely freezing to the point of shaking! I think it was a combination of the cloudiness, the dampness (it had just rained the day before), and the breeze. So, the paint dried very slowly…but in the end I love how it turned out!!
Here is a video…
The third Dunkin’ location didn’t need much updating…I just removed some pumpkins and replaced them with snow!
With some careful planning, you can save a little time and money with seasonal updates! Of course, window paintings aren’t really meant to last more than a few weeks, but these ones stay relatively protected from weather, and still looked like new. So, why not make them last? I did turn her earmuffs from orange to red here as well. The other side of the building didn’t have anything super fall-ish so I left that one as-is.
The last window job I’d like to share with you was my first INTERIOR job! This was for three conference rooms, which have basically a wall of glass.
This was a really fun and HUGE job! I probably painted around 50 feet lengthwise, and floor to ceiling. It was nerve wracking painting on carpet, but I made sure to have plenty of drop cloths and am super careful about making sure any paint I’m not using at the moment is closed up and in a safe spot. The tricky part here was keeping everything within just a few feet of the windows, so that people could still walk by me in the hallways!! It involved a lot of shuffling of my supplies. Also, being on the 7th floor, I probably spent 1/2 hour or so just bringing stuff in and out. I did also have to run out to Home Depot to grab a better, darker green…so all in all I spent about 10 hours straight here! Everything took more coats than usual…just because I am picky and I like it to be as opaque as possible. But, since these windows have exterior windows behind them, there is no way to completely avoid seeing brush strokes with the sun shining through them. I love how it turned out in the end, and it was really nice to be inside and not worry about weather! I also got to try out my new Posca paint pens for the ornaments. I didn’t take any time lapse movies of this, being that it was in an office, for privacy reasons.
So, as you can see I’ve been busy lately squeaking in window jobs between entertainment jobs! But, I really love window painting and I’m so glad that Covid pushed me to add this to my repertoire. It blends perfectly with my schedule, as I can paint windows on week days during the day, leaving those busy holiday weekends for face painting and balloon twisting!
Interested in learning more about becoming a window painter? Check out the latest issue of Wet Paint Magazine! I recently wrote an article about how I got into window painting, and the process I followed getting started, including some tips & tricks of the trade, resources to learn more, and a list of what supplies you need to get going!
Christmas time is the perfect time of year to do messy, glittery projects around the house. You can always blame the lingering glitter on your aunt who sent you that glittery card, or whoever wrapped their gifts in glitter paper, haha!
It seems we all have just a little more time on our hands this year, thanks to Covid, so why not spend some time reducing holiday waste and making something sparkly out of all those holiday cards? I remember my mom making these decorative balls out of old Christmas cards, and had one of hers in my decorations, so I thought I’d deconstruct it and make a couple of my own with an old stack of cards from previous years! My soon-to-be teenager Sam even helped me out with cutting, scoring, folding and gluing. This is a great project to do with your kids at any age. Little ones can help cut or tear the fronts of the cards off and recycle the backs. They can also help with the tracing of the patterns, and if they’re good with scissors, cutting out circles! Here’s how to make them!
Tools & Supplies Needed:
Template (see next step!)
Pile of holiday cards – You’ll need to make 20 circles to create one ball.
Cardboard – any thick stock will do. You can even use a holiday card back, or a cereal box from your recycle bin!
Scissors
Ballpoint pen or nail – for scoring the cards to create crisp folds
Glue – Any ol’ white school glue works, though thicker tacky glue will drip less
Cut out the circle and the triangle, lay it on your piece of cardboard, and use them to trace a pattern on the cardboard. Cut those out so you have a cardboard circle and triangle, as shown in the photo above. This is scaled to create about a 7″ diameter ball. If you like, you can scale these up or down to change the size of your ball!
2.Cut circles out of holiday cards
Next, lay your cardboard circles on the front of your cards, trace them, and cut them out. You’ll need 20 circles to make one ball. This is a great place to involve kids. You can have them start by tearing the cards in half and saving the fronts. Photo cards don’t work well because of their glossy surface, so we only use the paper greeting cards for these!
3. Score the triangular folds
Take one of your card circles and flip it upside down. Now take your triangle template and position it so that all 3 points are touching the edge of the circle. Here’s where you’ll use the nail…but it doesn’t have to be a nail. A ballpoint pen works, a letter opener, a toothpick, a fork, whatever…just something strong and relatively pointy. What we’re doing here is scoring the card, so that you’ll get perfectly straight, crisp folds. Press and run your nail or whatever tool along the three edges of the triangle. Put a piece of cardboard or paper underneath so you don’t scratch or write on the table! This is my son doing this part…
4. Fold
Now, flip your circle back over and fold towards the printed sides. Notice how nice it folds after you’ve scored it!
5. Glue 5 Circles together to form the top.
Put some craft glue on one of the flaps.
Glue together 5 pieces to create a domed, round top for your ball. Clothespins or chip clips work great to hold the together while they dry! Before you totally glue them all together, loop a piece of string, yarn or ribbon through the center point to hang it with. You can tie a knot here to hold it in, or just use some glue and/or tape inside to hold your string.
6. Repeat to create the bottom, and make a strip for the middle.
Now that you have the top made, do the same thing again to create the bottom. You should have two domed pieces made of 5 cards each. Next, glue 10 more together in a straight row, as shown above. This will be the middle of your ball.
7. Assemble the Ball
Take your strip of 10 cards, shape it into a ring and glue as shown above. As you can see here, I am impatient so I used a little tape on the inside to hold these together while they dry!
Now, glue on your top (above) and your bottom (below)!
8. Add Glitter!
And now for the BEST PART….the GLITTER!! When I’m using loose glitter like this, I work over a folded piece of paper, poster board, etc. This project is small enough that a file folder worked great! That way, you can catch all the loose glitter in the folder or paper, and use the crease to dump it neatly back into your glitter jar, leaving not a speck to be found. Hehe…
Doing one seam at a time, apply glue to the edge. Here’s where a thicker tacky glue might be helpful as it will be less drippy. But, you’ll want to get your glue on, and then quickly pour glitter on it before it drips away on you, which is why I apply glue and then glitter to one “rib” at a time…
This part may require some breaks to let the glue dry. I start with the top ribs, then go around to the side strip. Then, I let it sit and dry before turning it over and doing the bottom ones.
Notice my orange file folder catching every single speck of glitter?! Amazing, huh? We don’t have ANY loose glitter specks around our house…nope, not a one! 😉
Done!
Once they dry, hang them wherever you wish! These are pretty and simple, a fun way to get your kids into recycling, and a great way to honor all those friends and family who have taken the time to send you cards. If you can find glue that will work well, you can even try making these with photo cards, and have all your friends and family’s faces on them! And, like I said, you can even shrink down the template to create smaller ornaments, which would also enable you to get several circles out of one card.
In my family we like to kick off the Christmas season by decorating our tree, enjoying a plate of Christmas cookies and watching our first Christmas movie of the season! I have a stack of our favorites…Rudolf, Frosty, the Charlie Brown Christmas, Home Alone, the Grinch, Elf, etc! This year the boys picked The Christmas Story and we plan to work our way through them all this month!
I needed to create some sample windows to take photos, so I can show my clients visually what the difference is between windows painted from the interior vs exterior. So, I incorporated some of our favorite “Christmas specials” into my own home windows this past weekend! I still plan to add a few more characters in the coming weeks, but here’s what I have done so far! I also did a little bit of experimenting with glitter paint!
Are you unsure whether you want your windows painted from the inside or the outside? Ask your artist as they may have recommendations based on various factors. If you want it to grab attention from the outside, exterior painting may attract the most attention. However, if your windows are not on ground level where an artist can easily reach them, it’s too cold to work outside, or you’re worried about weather damaging them before you want them gone, an interior painting may be better. Read on to see some visual examples of the differences!
Frosty!! Painted on the exterior.
Santa!! Painted on the exterior.
Rudolf and Hermie! Painted on the exterior. The eggshell paint makes the designs really pop over the glossy window.
Max and the Grinch! Painted on the interior! You can see some reflections here in the glass.
Both interior and exterior paintings have their pro’s and con’s. As you can see below, the Grinch & Max aren’t QUITE as bright and bold as the others, because the window is still creating reflections in front of the paint. The other characters, however, block reflections because they are painted over the exterior glass. However, interior paintings can be a bit more interesting viewed from the inside too, not just the outside. They can also give a fun stained glass effect at night when the light shines through.
Interior paint job (grinch on left) vs exterior paint jobs (frosty, Santa, Rudolf and Hermie on right)
Painting on the OUTSIDE to be viewed from the OUTSIDE
Painting the exterior is generally my preferred method…when the temperatures are nice. Minnesota’s winter temperatures, however, do not play well with paint or liquids in general, not to mention the physical toil it takes on the artist. You have to wear more layers, bring more gear and take more time to create the same design you could paint in the summer. However, we had a nice 50 degree day last weekend, which was perfect to squeeze in this exterior paint job before the temps dropped! Below you can see the process I use for an exterior paint job.
I start with a white base, then add main colors, and finish off with outlines and highlights.
When I paint on the exterior, I start with a white base. This is what really makes the colors pop. It also ensures that you aren’t wasting a lot of colors going over something again and again to achieve a bright, opaque look. Then I add the main color fields, and finally I do outlines and highlights.
As you can see below, it’s not really meant to be viewed from the inside. (the left is a view of the window from inside the house…the right is outside) This doesn’t normally matter to businesses because their goal is to catch the attention of passersby outside, not inside.
However, there are some applications where you might want the painting viewable from the inside…for instance, if it is meant to be enjoyed by residents in a nursing home or kids in a daycare center.
Painting from the INSIDE to be viewed from the OUTSIDE
Interior window painting is ideal for the artist during those colder months. The paint flows and dries better when it’s not frozen, and designs also are easier to remove when the water isn’t turning to slush! It also is a good way to keep your artwork protected from wear and weather if you have issues with that. However, painting something on the INside that is meant to be viewed from the OUTside is a trickier and more time consuming process. The reason is that you have to work in reverse…if you make a mistake, you can’t just cover it up with more paint, because it’s being viewed from the other side. Basically you start with the outlines, highlights and shadows, which is something you do at the end of a traditional exterior painting, and work backwards, doing the main color fields last. It takes lots of confidence, more precision, and more layers of every color to get the bright, opaque results.
Interior process: Starts with the outlines, then shadows/highlights, then main color fields.
Above you can see the view of this interior painting from OUTSIDE on the left, and from the INSIDE on the right. As you can see, it looks nice and crisp when viewed from the outside, as is intended. However, it looks a little sloppier from the inside, just because of the layering method, and because it wasn’t done for inside viewing. Although, with more time I could go back over the outlines again at the end to clean it up from the inside if necessary. Again, most businesses wouldn’t care about this if their goal is to attract attention from outside. Even if you don’t clean it up on the inside, you can make out the design and colors much more from inside with this method than you could with Rudolf above, who looks more white from inside.
One kindof fun side effect of an interior paint job is that it almost lights up like a stained glass window at night, when it’s dark outside but your lights are on behind the art. A design painted on the exterior, however, wouldn’t look so colorful at night because the white base blocks the light from coming through.
Painting on the INSIDE to be viewed from the OUTSIDE AND INSIDE
It is also possible to create a design that is just as clean & crisp from the inside as it is from the outside…it just requires extra time to basically paint the same design twice…once in reverse considering the outside viewer, and then layering again over the top to clean it up for the inside viewer. Does your brain hurt yet? Hehe! If I get some free time I might go over the Grinch painting again from the inside, just to show how that can look…
More examples to come! Stay tuned!
I’ll be putting together a nice visual reference with all this info for my clients in the near future….but first I want to get photos of a design painted on vinyl and adhered to the outside, for more comparisons. Vinyl is another great method for the colder months, because the design can be painted indoors at the artist’s studio, and then applied on site. Stay tuned for more on that process!
Looking to have your windows painted for the holidays? Find out more or request a quote on our window painting page!
W07 Ooh! Snowflake Wrap$5.00
Wolfe Hydrocolor Makeup 45 gram$11.00
Short Kabuki Stencil Brush$4.99
12 mil Empty Body Glue Vial$1.50
Pros-Aide II$14.70 – $74.50
BAM Copy Cat Halftone Pattern$6.00
Deb’s Dotters$0.10
Wolfe Hydrocolor Makeup 90 gram$19.00
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