adult coloring

Mulberry Paper Collage for Wood Working

Collage is the art of using small scraps or pieces of paper, fiber, and printed material to create an image.  Its a favorite for scrap booking, altered art, and fine arts.  It can also be used for your wood and gourd crafts.

Supplies:  mulberry paper, rice paper, hand-crafted art paper, an acrylic based glue, a home computer printer, and a digital pattern.

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Mulberry and rice papers have little to no grain.  Instead they have a random fibrous base that allows the papers to bend, and adjust to the surface upon which they are applied. They are often semi-transparent which allows the media to show through the paper fibers – you don’t lose your wonderful wood grain of your basswood slab when you lay printed mulberry paper over top the surface.

Plus! They can be used with your home printer.  It is so much easier to print a complicated mandala pattern on art paper and then glue that paper to your board, then to try and trace each and every line of the design.

Acrylic-based glues and pastes keep the printed paper from becoming water saturated, which will cause the paper to buckle.  Try Yes! Glue, or PVA bookbinding acid-free glue instead of Elmore’s.

I have two new pattern packages on my pattern website, at ArtDesignsStudio.com, that are perfect for collage work.

I have also posted a new E-Project for creating a Mulberry Paper covered collage wood box, with step-by-step instructions.  Currently, July 13th, 2022, there is a Try It Before You Buy It free mandala pattern for the clock shown below posted on ArtDesignsStudio.com’s homepage.

This is a 1/2″ thick, end slab of basswood.  Sand the slab with 220-grit sandpaper and remove any dust.  Measure for the center point to create the 3/8″ hole needed for the clockworks.  Print your free pattern on Mulberry paper.  Use YES! glue with a palette knife on the back of the paper.  Center the mulberry printed pattern over the clock hole and with your fingers gently rub from the center out on the paper to remove any air bubbles.  Let the basswood collage slab dry overnight, then color your mandala with your favorite coloring agent – colored pencils, gel pens, watercolor crayons, soft pastels, and even watercolors.  Seal the finished clock with acrylic spray sealer … That’s it, quick, simple, and fun.

 

My new E-Project focuses on creating a collage covered wood craft box with a mandala design that flows over the top and sides of the box.You will learn:

how-to print the pattern to your art on mulberry paper,  rice paper, or hand-crafted art paper
how-to remove the pre-made box hardware
how-to measure the paper to fit the inside and outside of the box
how-to apply the acrylic-based YES! glue
how-to roll the paper over the sides of the box
how-to cut the lid free from the bottom
how-to create a secret inside lid trap door.

 

Of course, the E-Project covers basic instructions on using colored pencils to highlight your design.

Plus, there is a large, bonus, peony design, shown printed on medium-beige mulberry paper, ready for framing.

The new E-Project, Art Paper Mandala Collage E-Project, includes both mandala pattern packs – Mandala 1 Collage Patterns, and Mandala 2 Collage Patterns.  $14.95 for all.

Mulberry Paper Collage for Wood Working Read More »

Coloring Wood Carving, Pyrography & Gourd Projects

Painting Wood, Water Colors, Colored Pencils, Marking Pens

 

Coloring Your Projects

Painting with Eye Shadow for Wood Carving and Pyrographyfree pyrography clock pattern
Coloring Your Project
Color Chart for LSIrish.com
Basics to Painting
Adding Skin Colors with Watercolors
Basics to Painting
Acrylics over a Primer for Wood Carving
China Painting with Acrylics for Wood Carving
Dry Brushed Acrylics over Oil Stain for Wood Carvings
Marbling and Splatter Painting
Simple Dry Brushing for Wood Carving and Pyrography
Vintage Painting
Wood Carving and Burning Painting Supplies
Paint Kit Supplies for Painting Your Wood Carving
Steps to Success, Painting Your Wood Carving
Burnishing Your Wood Carving
Simple Blending with Acrylic Craft Paints
General Techniques Used in Wood Carving Paintingfinishing and paintinf techniques for wood
Basics to Painting for Pyrography and Wood Carving
Painting Eyes
Watercolors and Wood Burning
The Color Wheel, Who Is R. G. Biv?
Dry Brushing, Wood Painting Techniques by Lora Irish
Colored Pencil Let’s Talk Color
Marking Pen Quilts
Adult Coloring – Colored Pencil Application
Adult Coloring – Working with Colored Pencils
Adult Coloring Portraits
Colored Pencil Let’s Talk Color
Colored Pencil Pyrography
Color, Shadow, and Light in Pyrography
Coloring your Pyrography using Colored Pencils
Painting a Color Wheel for Pyrography, Gourd Art, Wood Carving
Working in Layers, Colored Pencils
Color Chart for LSIrish.com
Painted Blue Jeans 2, Free Craft Patterns
Painted Blue Jeans, Free Patterns
Sepia Toned Crayons

LSIrish.com

L S Irish Mission Statement
Free Wood Carving, Pyrography, Painting PDF Files
Selling Your Finished Work – Art and Craft Shows
Copyright, Can I sell my finished projects?
Lora Irish Copyright Article
How to Download

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Sepia Tonal Value Crayons for Pyrography

Crayons are a quick and easy media to use on your printed patterns when you want to test your tonal values before you begin your pyrography burn.

While browsing through the Back to School supplies at my local big box store I came across Crayola’s 24 pack of Colors of the World skin toned crayons.  This same palette of colors is also available from Crayola as marking pens –  Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Multicultural Markers, Broad Line, 10 Count,  and in colored pencil media – Crayola 24 Colors of The World Skin Tone Pencils.

(These are Amazon.com Affiliate links above.)

All these packs hold a range of yellow-brown, red-brown, and neutral brown color giving us, pyrographers, a full sepia scale to compliment our burnings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before you touch your wood watercolor paper, or gourds with your pen, use can use these color packs to establish exactly where you want your shading and how light or dark you want it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any mistakes or any decisions to change an area’s value is worked out on paper, not on your expensive basswood plaque.

Free LSIrish.com pattern

 

 

 

 

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Limited Color Palette for Wood Crafts

A limited color palette allows you total control over which elements in your painting become dominant; which become secondary; and which fall into the foreground, mid-ground, or background.  So whether you do fine art paintings, wood carvings, or pyrography, understanding how  limited palette can work for your craft makes the painting steps so much easier.

You probably are already using a limited color palette but may not realize that the way you chose your colors has a name and purpose. So let’s do a little art color theory exploration.

What captures your attention first?
   1. The barn scene.
   2. The path and background mountains.
   3. The Christmas tree and fence lights.

It is the Christmas tree and fence lights that catch my eye. The barn scene becomes a secondary element which simply tells the story of where that Christmas tree is located.  The reason the tree is dominate is because I have used a limited color palette.

 

PLANNING YOUR PALETTE
Limiting your color palette does not necessary mean using just a minimal number of colors, although that is one method of creating a limited palette painting.

This painting used fifteen different colors but specifically limits where each color can be used.
For this sample it means that I have carefully planned in advance where I would use my colors and what type of color – neutral, pure, or tonal value – I would use for each element.

I began by categorizing each element in the painting as a neutral area, natural area, man made area, tree lights area, and the main feature of the design. This gives me five types of elements in the pattern.

ASSIGNING TONAL VALUE PALETTES
Neutrals are my blending and shading tones for my natural and man made elements. These are simple white, black, and mid-tone brown.

Naturals are my snow, sky, mountains, and trees. For this palette I chose mid-tone gray-scaled colors of medium blue-gray, medium purple-gray, and medium green-gray. All three have the same muted mid-range gray tone which unities them on the tonal value scale.

Man made elements include the barns, the silos, and the fence posts. To make these areas slightly different from the natural tones I have added a medium red-gray to my colors. This color is only used in those man made objects.

Tree light elements use a total new palette of only primary and secondary pure colors that contain no white, gray, or black toning.

Highlights of pink and pale bright green are used only in the primary element of the main Christmas tree to make it the dominant feature of the entire design.

 

GRAY SCALE V. PURE COLOR
Gray-scaled tonal value colors are used throughout this scene, with the exception of the tree light color palette.
The greatest contrast of those tones are found in the barn roof overhangs where the pure white of the snow meets the darkest black tone of the barn wall shadows. The strength of this black-white contrast is most often found in the front elements of your mid-ground area.

As you come forward in a scene, into the foreground, more colors can be distinguished and therefore there are less black-toned elements. A foreground tree trunk has shades of brown and gray where a mid-ground tree trunk tends to lose that coloring therefore going into the black-tones.

Background scene elements tend to be in the white-toned area of your colors. Distant trees, mountains, and the sky area of worked in the pale white-gray tones.

 

PURE COLOR TONAL VALUES
Pure colors as primary and secondary hues have no added white, gray, or black tone and therefore no real tonal value.

Those bright pure colors become mid-toned with only as much visual impact to the design as the background mountains.
In the gray scaled painting what has become dominant are the areas of greatest tonal value contrast – those areas where the blackest tones lies directly against the brightest white tone.

Home Sweet Home- Jewel-Toned Dark Value Palette
This Home Sweet Home hen uses a limited palette of only dark-toned valued colors – dark red-brown, dark green-blue, dark yellow, and dark brown. The dark toned colors are often called jewel tones.
As a folk art design the elements in the pattern are simple and a very limited color palette emphasizes that simplicity.
Pattern available in Hens, Roosters, and Chickens

 

 

Snow Day
My final example of limited palette coloring for your wood crafts uses only primary
and secondary colors. No tertiary hues are used.  Since this is a wood burning this small wall heart
was painted using watercolors which allow all of the sepia burning to show underneath the hue.
The full tutorial and pattern are found here …

 

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN FOR OUR PAINTING?
It means that color dominates tonal value, that dramatic changes in tonal value dominate over mid-toned values, and that by choosing to limit our color palette we, the artist, decide which elements we want to have the strongest impact in the final design.

I can push an area forward by using pure color hues or I can set the element firmly in the mid-ground range by using dramatic tonal contrasts, or I can push the area into the far background by using closely related mid-toned values.

Ceremonial Mask – Transparent Wash-Tone Palette
Only very water-thinned, pure color make the limited palette for this Ceremonial Mask relief carving.
By only using transparent coloring and coloring without a gray-tone addition,
the wood grain and antiquing remain dominant.
Pattern available in Ceremonial Masks

 

HOW DO I GIVE EXTRA IMPACT?
Our original limited palette contains only two pastel tones – pink which is red plus white, and pale Caribbean green which is green plus white. Neither of these colors contain gray or black.

Those two pastels, used only in the main Christmas tree are enough color change to separate this tree from the other lit pine tree and the fence line lights.

Click on the image below for a free, full-sized, printable pattern.

 

 

Limited Color Palette for Wood Crafts Read More »

Redwork Embroidery Christmas Angel

Redwork Embroidery Christmas Angel
Christmas Calicos Pattern Pack

Supplies:
14″ square of unbleached muslin
large embroidery hoop
embroidery needles
your favorite shade of red embroidery floss
Christmas Calicos angel pattern
scrap booking gel pens
white acrylic craft paint
embroidered rose accent

Our great-grandmothers didn’t have acrylic paints and gel pens in their embroidery craft kit but we do!

So after you have finished your embroidery stitching get them out onto your craft table and have fun adding bits and accents of bright colors to the inside areas of your design.  You can use layers of gel pen colors to create intense color tones, add darker or lighter shades of gel pen over an area to make highlights and shadows … and even use different colors to make your own calico fabric patterns.

Some pale gel pens do require multiple colors.  For my white I chose to use acrylic craft paint.

If you get a little out of the line with the gels or if you have small openings in your stitch word, use a matching red gel pen to go over the embroidery floss.  Use embroidery patches, accent flowers, small bows and ribbons, and even tiny buttons to dress her up.

Once everything is completed and your redwork angel has dried over night, give it a nice ironing to permanent set the colors.  She is ready for her permanent hoop frame and to be placed on your mantel !!!!

 

Have fun ~ Lora

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