On Friday, I went to my church, Mount Zion UCC, and learned how to paint on slate.
My great-aunt, Sharon Baines, holds painting classes once a month from noon to 3 p.m. at the church. The group has also painted glass Christmas ornaments and a number of other cool home adornments.
The designs are cute and country-style, so if your home decor is in that same style, you might want to learn how to paint like that.
I started out by sketching the snowman I wanted to paint, then painting in the background color, Persian blue.
After that, I filled in with white, letting the blue show through where I wanted the shadow to be. I also added a shadow with the same blue, mixed with a glaze medium to water it down.
I then added details to the snowman’s body, painting in the face, the arms, and the buttons.
I also gave him a hat and scarf.
After that, I painted in some foreground details. When you’re painting like this, you start from the back and work your way forward. It takes quite a bit of thought, because you don’t want to be painting the background when you’ve already painted the things in front of it.
I added snow the same way I added the snowman…
And then I added some trees to fill the white void and add a new color.
I sealed the painting with a sort of shiny sealer so that the paint wouldn’t flake off. The slate is really heavy and would make for a good outside decoration or it would be nice inside, too.
The painting was easy to learn and the project went quickly. My snowman was done in three hours. You can’t say that about knitting!
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