When I was in 8th grade, I remember learning how to shade for the first time. Our art teacher had us draw a ribbon and with our pencil we would press hard near the small corners where the ribbon would twist and then lighten up, by loosening our grip on the pencil as we get further from that point. I fell in love with that! I would draw it every where! I still do to this day and I use it as a mini lesson when I substitute teach. Especially if I see a student who likes to draw. If we have extra time during the day and all the work is done I will teach the students a quick shading ribbon lesson. They love it as much I as I did when I first learned how to do it!
When I first started painting in college, one of the first things I wanted to paint was a ribbon. It was more difficult because now I had to mix the colors instead of just loosening my grip on my pencil. For my first large product I did just that and had the ribbon coming out of glass jar, my professor really liked that idea and complimented me on it many times.
Now painting on my own, I still enjoy doing just that. When my room was first painted a purple tone with a darker shade, I wanted to paint something to match my room. My bed spread was a sage green so I decided to paint a purple shade as the background and the the ribbon and jar green.
It's a little crooked and I can tell buuuttt, I'll just hang the picture a lil crooked so the jar looks more up right haha.
Tonight I decided to try and paint another ribbon in a jar. I wanted to use the blue and tan. I had a little trouble mixing the correct color for the tan and it ended up coming our more orange (I started with way too much red).
When I first started painting the canvas my paint brush brisels were coming out. I switched brushes and only used it for mixing because majority of the time they come loose and get stuck on my picture.
When I was trying to make tan, I ended up mixing more paint then I wanted. I like the orange that came out and didn't want to waste such a great color, so I grabbed another canvas and painted that entire canvas that color. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it yet but that's the great thing about acrylic paint, you can paint over it as many times as you want.
I'm not sure what made me think of it but even after I painted the canvas with the left over orange, there was still a little left. I still had some of the blue left, so I decided to mix them together to see what color would come out. It came out to be a tan/brown/gray shade. I wanted to use it because it was pretty. I just kept on going and started to free hand LIVE LIFE on the canvas. I had never painted a sign before but love the way this came out!
The letters aren't perfect because I didn't use a stencil, which makes it even more of an original.
These 2 finished pieces will be up on my Etsy shop before Sunday. Stop by and check them out!
etsy.com - key word: savviedesigns
xoxo Savannah
