Tutorials and Other Tips on Art – The Artzy Evangawriter

Making Kid’s Projects Your Own: Crafts Tutorial

Babysitting can be hard. But it can also be really fun, and you can learn a lot!

My mom babysits for a friend sometimes, and 4-year-old Katie is a total joy.

Katie loves to do crafts and art. She’ll scribble with her markers all day long, unless she’s building lego towers or tearing up craft paper! Her adorable smile brings joy to my heart, and the other day she sparked a whole new idea…

I came home from work and my mom was helping Katie with a new craft project. Rainbow colors were all over the table, and at first I didn’t see what exactly they were working on. But when I did, I immediately thought I want one of those! That’s so fun!

What was the project, you ask?

Hearts.

Simple paper hearts that were absolutely lovely!

My mom and Katie were making rainbow hearts, but today I’ll be showing you the steps to make your own in blue. My whole desk area is brown and blue/turquoise, so I picked blue as the theme for my own hearts.

Yes, I actually did the Children’s Craft for myself. But I promise, it’s wonderful, lovely and complicated to do it as a teen or adult as well! I love my hearts, and I hope you do, too. 😊

My first step is to pick out the colors I want. I just recently got a pack of pastel card-stock, so I took all the blueish colors in that pad plus a white, ending up with four colors. Any more than that would get hard to handle and stick together, so I recommend sticking to four or five for you project. 😄

I stacked the colors in shade order, going from darkest to lightest (NOTE: keep the papers stacked this way through the whole project so they don’t get messed up!).

Then I cut strips with this handy cutter-thing (I don’t know what it’s called… 🤭). I stuck to around 1/2″ wide or less, but you can do wider. I think for Katie’s project they cut 1″ strips. I cut all four pieces at the same time!

I cut four strip groups, setting each apart so they didn’t get mixed up.

Then, taking my first one, I laid it beside a ruler and dropped each descending piece down a 1″ until I got to the bottom piece (in this case, the darkest blue).

Carefully keeping them stacked in this order, I turned the whole stack over and cut the opposite ends off at the dark blue one (does that make sense? Probably not… Basically I cut the three ‘top’ pieces to the length of the bottom piece. I don’t think that explains it much better though… 😟)

It should end up with the bottom (in my case, the darkest blue) piece being longer than the rest, the ones in front getting slightly shorter until you get to the front piece.

For the next step, I held the ends tightly and folded each piece over to touch the bottom, starting with the shortest and ending with the longest. Then I stapled all the ends together (this is why sticking to four or five colors is best, since it would get hard to staple together). It should look something like this:

That’s one half of your heart. Repeat for the other side.

The next step is to find a ribbon for your project (if you want it to hang. If not, skip this step). I used a sparkly blue ribbon I had on hand, about 1/2″ wide.

Run some glue up one side of each half of the heart, then stick them together with the ribbon in between. Use clothespins or paper clips to hold it together until it dries!

That’s it! It’s pretty simple, but the results are stunning. In my case, I made three hearts and stuck them all onto my ribbon in size order. 😁

One additional touch is to use washi tape or an extra strip of paper to cover the staples on the bottom, which I did. This just adds a certain degree of style to the project!

How did you like the project? Have you done something similar before, and how did it turn out?

Let me know in the comments!

God bless,

Janet💙

The Art ‘Hack’ that is WAY Easier Than it Looks

As the title suggests, I’ve recently learned a painting technique that was way easier than I ever suspected.

I’ve always admired paintings of rain—especially the super complicated ones with raindrops on a window. Soooooo cool, right?

Well, I thought that painting rain was super hard, so I never tried it.

Until last Friday, when I saw a tutorial of a rainy window painting . . . and my mind was completely blown.

Wait, WHAT?!?! It’s THAT easy?!?!

Yep, it’s that easy.

Allow me to explain how this crazy-simple way of painting rain works.

First, paint the background (what is behind the window pane). In my case, it was a foggy-looking cloudy sunset with a tree (the tree turned out terribly, by the way XD).
Second, sprinkle white dots of paint across the entire painting. The guy in the video used a toothbrush that he rubbed with his finger. I didn’t have a toothbrush handy, so I used a fan brush and whacked it not-so-gently on my finger (it worked pretty well, actually).
Third, use a very tiny brush to place black dots all over where you want raindrops.
Fourth (still using the tiny brush), add little white dots and Vs underneath the black ones.

Ta-da! Seriously, that’s it.

You can also add wavy white lines with black shadows steaking down the glass to make it seem like enough water was collected to streak down your window!

And if you want, you can add something on the close side of the glass, which I did in the example below!

Unwittingly, I’d spent many years avoiding rainy paintings because I thought they were hard. All this time, I could have been painting rain all over the place!

So I’m here to tell you, “Don’t avoid raindrops!” They’re NOT that hard, and the effect is pretty stunning if you ask me. 😀 So go paint some water! LOL.

Here’s the painting I did, as an example for ya’ll. 😉

What amazing art techniques have you picked up on lately? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

God bless,

Janet

Painting a Sunflower!

Well, I’m late in two days this time. 😂

First off, because it isn’t Thursday… at least by my calendar. The second way is in the content of this post. The piece of art shown here would better fit summer, as you’ll soon see.

This painting is actually one I did a while ago (so in that way I wasn’t late! Haha.) I’d meant to do a post on it, but then I lost the pictures I took of it. So… I never did the post. Cause what’s a piece of art when you can’t see what it looks like, right?

Well, today I found the pictures, so now I’m going to do the post! 😊

First off, when painting, I always lay my canvas on scrap paper. In this case, I used newspaper, but you can use anything you want. Second, I will sometimes make a border on my painting by taping off the edges before beginning to paint. This is something I saw on Youtube, and I quite like the result! I used masking tape, but I’m sure there’s an actual art tape you should use, since masking tape sometimes bubbles and lets paint through underneath (don’t worry, you can paint over it in white later!) .

Ok, next! I the first thing I did here was put some white paint directly on my canvas. I do this because it takes a lot of paint to cover the canvas, and it’ll take a while if you’re using a palette and transferring it brushful by brushful. I spread the white out completely, then but on blue and green the same way, to establish a background wash. The original white is covered up, but it helped spread the following layers of paint!

Ok, so here is shown my next step (I forgot to take a picture of adding the blue and green… whoops!) after setting up my background. I added white here as a rough guideline to the stems of the sunflowers I’ll be adding in a minute.

Ok… here I got carried away in my painting and totally forgot to take pictures of the following steps… basically I started at the bottom and layered my way up, adding more color and detail as I went until I got to… this!

They’re a little… wonky if you couldn’t tell. 😂 I’d never painted sunflowers before, so the colors and petals didn’t turn out quite right. The leaves… were also terrible. The one on the far right is the best one, by far, as you’ll see in a moment. The reason the others look a little strange is because (especially on the middle flower) the don’t have a branch-thing connecting them to the main stem. And the others are just WAY to droopy-looking… 😂

Anyway, on to the next picture! In this one my mom suggested I add little dots for fireflies (and to spruce it up a little bit) and a ladybug. I’d also never painted a ladybug before…

You’ll notice I also connected the floating leaf, and added more detail to the flowers. Now for the final product, when I took off the tape surrounding the edges of the painting!

Granted, I could have done the border a little thinner… but I could have done a lot of things differently that I didn’t. 😂 My mom liked it a lot, and one of our neighbors did too! She actually ended up buying it recently, so now she has it in her kitchen on the wall. 😊

Hope you enjoyed today’s little art piece! Have you done any paintings lately? Did this inspire you to do so? Tell me in the comments; I love to hear from you, my wonderful readers! 💛

God bless,

Janet 🌻

Is Copying Wrong???

I’ve dealt with this problem before – is copying someone else’s work wrong???

There are two answers to this . . .

ANSWER 1: NO

I use a lot of references when drawing, sometimes even copying a drawing line for line. This helps me get better at my own technique, and learn how other great artists do it!

My mom sometimes says when I copy something my brother does (or the other way around, which isn’t as often) that copycatting is the best way to show admiration. If I think what my brother did is amazing or really well done, I want to try it myself.

This used to make him really upset, like I was trying to do it better. But really, I was looking up to him and following his example!

It can work the same way with copying drawings. You may really love how it looks and want to learn how to do it the same way.

But . . .

ANSWER 2: YES

If you want to SELL a drawing, then by no means should it be an exact copy of someone else’s work.

For example, I just finished my commission for illustrating a children’s book on Tuesday. I used a LOT of reference pictures for that project, since I usually draw in full cartoon or realistic, not a mix of both like she wanted for her book.

So I would use both pictures of real people and cartoons to help me merge the two styles. Sometimes I would use the exact pose from my reference for a drawing, but NEVER would it look exactly the same. I would change the facial expression and the clothing. Sometimes I would flip a picture or change the angle.

When I was using a real photo as my reference, my drawing would obviously not look the same as the photo, so I was pretty safe in that regard.

But when (aside from that project) I draw cartoon/manga characters, sometimes I DO copy a drawing exactly. But I wouldn’t sell that picture. It’s just for me, to make me happy.

I might show some friends, but I won’t try to market my copy as an original, because that’s pirating. It’s taking someone’s amazing drawing and trying to sell it as your own.

CONCLUSION

So if you want to copy someone’s drawing to learn their style, or just to have a copy of it . . .

Don’t try to sell it or market it as your own. ALWAYS give credit to the original artist if you post it anywhere!!! But feel free to copy whatever pictures you like – it’ll help you get better at drawing!!!

And who knows? You may be that amazing author that everyone wants to copy someday 😀

God bless,

Janet 🦋

Enchanted Garden

Today I went to help one of our elderly neighbors with lawn work.

When Mr. Dave asked me what I’d be doing today later, I replied that I needed to write a bit on my book, and that I would write a blog post.

He was surprised that I had a blog (I haven’t actually told many people about it yet . . . 😬 ), and asked what I’d write about.

Since today was the day for an art post, I told him that I’d have to come up with something related to that. Then I had this idea –

“Maybe I’ll write about this!”

“What – working for me?”

“Yeah! I could tie it in somehow . . . “

He kinda laughed, “The Enchanted Garden?”

You see, at this point we were working in a little alcove past his lawn, where there are rose bushes, moss and some flowers planted behind a cool rock wall.

Apparently it’s now called the Enchanted Garden, and believe me, the name fits. It’s really cool back there.

This section hadn’t been cleaned out in a while, though. Mr. Dave has had hip problems for a while, and it hurts him to do much work out there (which is why I’m helping him).

There were a lot of weeds, and the rose bushes were out of control – about 14′ high!

My job was trimming the rose bushes, making them rounder on top and getting the edges under control (and back to 8′ tall). I had some long clippers, but that bush was still really tall and pokey.

It was a little hard, and I got poked quite a lot. When that part was done, we cleaned off the cut branches and pulled the weeds.

And when we finished that, we stepped back and admired.

It looked amazing – artistic even. Now it really was an Enchanted Garden!🌹🌸 🌹

So that’s how I tie that in . . .

What I learned from this was that art can show up anywhere – whether that’s on paper or canvas, in jewelry, in baking, or even out in the garden.

But it’s also hard.

If you want an amazing painting, it takes time and effort. If you want a sculpted bush, the same thing applies. I was tired and sweaty when we were done, but it was totally worth it!!!

So have no fear to take the time to make that picture amazing. Be ready to get the details right, and it’ll be way more rewarding.

Plus the person you’re working for will be happier with it! 😀

God bless,

Janet 🦋

Art at the County Fair

Our county fair was this last week, and there was soooooo much art there!

First you should know that my sister and I spent a lot of time at the fair . . . a LOT. We went every day except one.

Why?

It was because we were helping at two booths! The first was inside in the air-conditioning (which was very nice). We did hand painting and told kids about Jesus. It was great! 😀

The second was a lemonade trailer, about 15 minutes away (walking) from the first. And when we would leave the first one, my sister and I would look around at the other booths on our way to serve lemonade.

And we saw art. Lots of it!

You may be picturing (pun intended) framed photos or drawings, but that’s not all we saw.

You see, art shows up in many other places than frames! Art on tee-shirts, in jewelry, in hairstyles, and in the booth displays! They’re all different kinds of art, but they each show a unique personality.

Did you ever think about how what you wear portrays who you are? It does! Your own artful touch shows up in each article of clothing or accessory you put on.

But there was also the framed art and paintings.

On one of the days when we were done at both booths early, my sister and I went into the Open Class art exhibit. It was like walking into art heaven for me. 😀

Well, most of it was. 😂

There was some abstract art on the wall that was a little confusing to look at (kinda made my head swim), but to each their own! I personally don’t paint abstract as a habit, so it’s not my personal preference. But some of them had gotten blue ribbons, so somebody enjoys it!

Other than those, I saw charcoal portraits (that all looked AMAZING!!!), acrylic landscapes, watercolor flowers, and pencil sketches. They were all fantastic!

But my favorite one was a Chinese brush painting of a rose tree. I have a book about that style
(with tutorials). I’ve seen that painting before and want to do it.

When I saw it at the fair, I just stared. May I say it looked a teeeeennnyyyy bit better than the one in the book? I thought it did. 😊

But maybe that’s because someone who lives near me did it, instead of someone in a book. 🤷‍♀️

Either way, there was lots of art at the fair! I enjoyed seeing what is possible, and I was reinspired by seeing all the masterpieces.

And of course, I can’t leave without mentioning the jewelry.

Why?

Because in exchange for looking at the art, my sister (a jewelry maker) made me look at the jewelry.

Every. Single. Booth. In the whole fair.

But it was cool anyway, because there was art there too! Especially in the wire bending, which we saw a lot of. I love that style!

Ok, I’m done rambling. 😀 Go make some art, and God bless!

~Janet

3 Ways to Copy Pictures

Hello! Today I’m going to take you through three of my favorite ways to copy pictures. Now, why might you want to copy a picture??? I’ve given you a few scenarios below, and I’m sure you’ll think of many more ways that this option might be helpful!

Let’s get started! 😀

TEQNIQUE #1—Printer

Say that you like the look of one of your drawings so much that you want to color it a couple times just to see what it looks like. In that case, don’t color the original! You might want to have it in the future 😀

When I am in this situation, I like to use our printer to copy my pencil sketches for coloring, and then I have a black-and-white picture (the copy) to use.

When you do this, you can make as many copies as you want—for your friends as well if they want—and they can all be in B&W because you didn’t color the original. There won’t be any strange shades from the first coloring.

Another great thing about doing this is that you can always go back and revise the original if you want.

For example: say you have just drawn a girl standing, looking over her shoulder. You really like the drawing, but you’re wondering what it might be like if you added another person or an animal (whatever you like, really).

So, go and make a copy of it, and then change the original! You can add other characters to the scene or adjust her posture, expression, etc.—and you still have the copy of what it looked like before if you want to go back to that.

TEQNIQUE #2—Light box

If you don’t want to use or don’t have a printer to copy with, another option is a light board or box. You can buy these online or make one yourself!

I remember when I was little, my brother and I would make light boxes all the time (all the time because the pieces had to be put away when we were done with them).

The way to make a lightbox is as follows:

1. Find a stepstool or cardboard box (something with walls strong enough to support some weight and tall enough to hold a flashlight).

2. You will also need a glass plate or piece of glass large enough to cover the entire top surface of the box you’re using.

3. Grab a flashlight, lamp, or your phone (turn on the flashlight if using this option), and place it in the box with the light facing up. Place your glass object of choice on top of the box.

4. Voila! You have a light box. Simply place the drawing or photo you want to copy on top of the glass and a blank sheet of paper on top of that. Hold it still (don’t let the top paper shift around), and you can copy the bottom picture.

5. If your light isn’t bright enough, you can move it closer to the glass or add a second one.

It’s pretty easy and fun! Of course, it’s important not to shift the top paper around like I mentioned above because then your copy might look a little weird . . .

TEQNIQUE #3—Graphite Paper

Another art supply you can use to copy pictures is graphite paper (GP for short). It’s a thin paper that is covered on one side in . . . graphite (thus the name). You can use it to copy a picture onto another piece of paper, or you could copy a picture onto a canvas or a wall to paint!

Not sure how to do that?

1. Put the GP on the canvas—with the graphite side facing down.

2. Then you put the drawing or photo you want to copy on top of that, and arrange it how you want.

3. Use a pencil or—if you don’t want to draw directly onto the reference picture—a sharp object like a skewer or needle tip, and draw over the lines on your reference picture that you want transferred to the canvas!

4. Voila! You have a rendition of the original picture on the canvas (or whatever you were copying onto).

I personally love graphite paper because it’s so easy to use! There isn’t any setup needed, and you can use one piece of GP many times before you need a new one.

Also, it doesn’t leave any smudge marks but leaves a nice thin line—well . . . as thin as the pencil or skewer you were using—that you can then adjust how you want and finish!

NOTE: you can quite easily paint over the graphite lines on the canvas and erase them once the paint is dry. This is useful for any painting where you want guidelines for your picture. They might show up a little bit, but if you draw lightly, it shouldn’t cause any problems. Be cautious, though, if you want to enter the painting in a contest. Sometimes contest rules force such a painting to be entered as “mixed media” if pencil marks are visible.

Well, that’s all I have on picture copying! See you in the next post 😀

Thanks for reading, and God bless,

~Janet