Hand Painted Christmas Sign

Merry Christmas from the Artists here at 365 Days of crafts.

We hope you have enjoyed this art pieces we have shared with you this year.  We look forward to finishing out this year and bringing you and even better format for next year.  We have some wonderful behind the scene changes.  If you have liked what you have seen this year you are going to LOVE 2012!   Again MERRY CHRISTMAS and a JOYOUS NEW YEAR!!!

I was shopping in the craft store …

and I found some fun holiday signs that were already painted, glittered, and strung with hangers – but they were blank.

Hmm.  I love blank!!  So, at 50% off I paid $1.50 – $2.00for a few of these painted, glittered, hangered (ha!)

blanks.

This one came with a beautiful glittery silver bow tied on as a hanger, but it had to go.  I can’t get all “paint-y” knowing I’m trying not to mess up the bow.  So the bow had to go. (I actually tried to untie the knots first to salvage it and use it again afterI painted, but that didn’t work out).  I must have left my bow un-tying finger elsewhere today.  I wanted to make a glittery “BELIEVE” sign.

So I made a pattern by writing the word  “BELIEVE” on tracing paper.  I centered it onto the front of the sign and used transfer paper and a stylus to outline the letters.

I outlined each letter with red paint loose and quick – not trying to get perfect coverage … just a starting point for the shading I did next.

To shade, wet a flat brush and blot it on a paper towel. Dip one corner of the brush into a puddle of paint, and brush back and forth on a palette (or waxed paper) until the paint becomes distributed along the bristles. It will be stronger on one side and fade

towards the other side.

You want the part of the brush with the most paint against the letter, and the faded side away from the letter. Think “LEFT” and “LOWER” when shading; meaning you’ll be putting paint on the left and lower sides of whatever you’re shading – in this case, letters.

Once dry, go over each letter again with the red paint, this time you’re trying to achieve good coverage and an overall “even” look to the letters.

Then go over the bottom third of each letter with a darker shade of red.

Use a liner brush to outline each of the letters with thinned black paint.

I decided to add some holly leaves, so I made a pattern and transferred them onto my sign board.

I painted the leaves a medium green, and outlined them with the liner brush and thinned black paint.  Then I dipped a paintbrush handle into red paint and added some berries.

I LOVE GLITTER!

So I added some of Plaid’s Extreme Glitter … green to the leaves … red to the letters and berries. Then for good measure, I coated the whole thing with Plaid Extreme Glitter – Hologram.

It looks great smooshed into the Christmas tree … here’s the one I made last year: