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Saturday, June 19, 2010

Rock Painting at Pattibears Place


Friday was the first class in rock painting I have given so far this season. Three young men seven, ten and thirteen came. Normally my first class is a bunny so the student learns to make fur strokes and gets the basics of rock painting.  This was not the case, not only did these three not want to paint a bunny, they each wanted to paint a different animal.....and none had fur!

The littlest decided on a turtle ... and angry turtle. He did fairly well for a first time and added some great color to the turtle shell and in the end he did look angry turtle.
Student number two had a rock, not shaped like any animal, so we took another route and painted the animal on the rock.  Not the rock into an animal , like we normally do. He made a lizard, colorful with it drawn completely by him.
Number three had heard his mother say the day before in my shop that she wanted an owl and he found a rock that would work. Just let me say feathers are harder than fur to paint, and this student had never painted before either. But, he listened and tried his best and in the end MOM got an owl


This is how it usually goes!

Find a smooth rock, for a bunny a baked potato shape works great. As you get more experience you can work around odd shaped rocks. Basecoat your rock with black acrylic paint. This gives you a base to work from and helps get shadow and depth to your painting. Use a wide brush, ( good brushes are not necessary for this part )       Use chalk to outlind where the face is, the ears and where the back legs are. This is just a guide and will be covered up later. It helps to look at a picture, I recommend the kids books on HOW TO DRAW ANIMALS a great source to show features and proportions.



Next thin some white paint to use for your fur strokes. The most important thing to remember is to stroke in the same direction the fur grows!  Outline the ears, nose and eyes. you will fill these in later. Remember there is never too big of a mistake you can't correct....Just paint it black and start again! The back legs are painted like wheel spokes coming down , the face fur grows up from the nose and to the sides from the eyes. The cheeks are little white puffs with a triangle of white between for the chin.
As you practice your fur lines will become finer and you can get even more detail. Let your white fur lines dry completely.
The back of the bunny, no tail yet, that is a final detail
add brown for the eyes and flesh for the nose and ears

Delute brown paint to a tint and cover the white fur lines. Leave the cheeks and chin white
Add some white eyelashes around the eyes, paint in the pupils and add awhite reflection dot. Brush in a few black eyelashes and last but not least  Do not forget the tail....and you are done

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love to paint Rocks! Sure is FUN! Visiting from 'Mom Loop' I too am late. But I am glad I came...Nice Blog I will follow and re-visit. Thanks, susie

Sonia Valdez said...

What a wonderful project and great fun way to teach how to paint.

Thank you for coming to visit from Mom Loop FF.

Paula@One Mom's Corner of the World said...

These are really cool! I'm visiting from Blog Hop Friday. I signed up to be a new follower.