Guest Post On Elemental Mini-Figure Painting

A huge welcome to my sister Jenelle for agreeing to do a blog post for us this week about her latest and favorite miniature that she has painted.  So without further ado here she is.

For many of us that decide to try new things, it is because someone we know has introduced us to that thing.  Well, a few months ago my sister Tiffany, started texting me some pictures of the D&D minis that she had started painting.  I instantly fell in love with all the texture and depth that she was able to put into them.

During the past like 6 weeks when I have been painting some of my own minis, I have come to discover that some of my favorite things to paint are elemental figures.  Therefore, my Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures "Unpainted Earth Elemental - Medium Size" is at the very top of my list of favorite things that I have painted.  I started with my base coat of  Army Painter "Werewolf Fur" to which I slowly mixed in drops of Army Painter "Monster Brown" and dry brushed approximately 5 different shades of brown onto the top of my solid base coat.  Each coat becoming lighter and spread over less surface to give the elemental the texture and depth of dry, cracked earth.

The very next thing that I decided to do with my elemental was to give his eyes a shine.  For this I picked out the Army Painter "Greedy Gold" color. As soon as I had that color within the eyes, I knew that I was not going to try to add anything else to the eyes for pupils.  This was when my sister Heather showed up and suggested that I use a darker, coppery color to add a little bit of veins into the cracks of the elemental's skin.  To achieve this I used the Army Painter "Weapon Bronze".  This difference is subtle, and unless you are looking closely you might assume that the eyes are the same color as the veins.

The next thing that I decided to do was to try and paint the crystals to look like quarts or amethyst. So once again I started with a base coat color just on the crystals this time. I used Army Painter "Alien Purple".  Then going into the dry brush technique again I build up about 5 layers of shades of purple slowly adding in Army Painter "Matt White" to lighten the purple as I went.  After the handful of shades of purple I took my white and added just the tiniest amount of the purple to it.  So that I had a faintly purple tinted white.  Then I dry brushed just the tips of the crystals.

Seeing that they still did not look as shiny as I feel crystals really do in real life, I decided to try a adding a very thin layer of Master Series Paint Reaper(MSPR) "Pearl White" to the crystals.  Well, this color went on way to thick to make me happy, So I only did part of 1 crystal with it and then I turned to MSPR "Shining Mithril" as I had previously used this color for a different mini and knew that it was a thinner color than the white. This new shimmery color almost accomplished what I had been hoping that it would.

The crystals were almost as shiny as I felt they should be.  So, I turned to MSPR "Sparkling Amethyst" thinking, or perhaps hoping, that this one would also be a very thin color and that it would finish off the sparkle that I wanted.  I painted just 1 crystal and had to stop.  This color was not at all what I imagined because it was coming out as a dark purple.  It was shiny, but I was conflicted.  So I turned to Tiffany and handed her the elemental.  Her reaction surprised me because she was impressed, and not conflicted at all about how much she liked it.  Then her comments allowed me to see the crystals in a new light.  She also suggested that I keep most of the crystals as they were currently painted and then just a couple here and there of the darker shiny purple crystals to the overall design.  This allowed me to really fall in love with the look of all the crystals.

After finally finishing the crystals, which took me double the time that the rest of the mini had already taken, I kept trying to decide if he was finished.  There was something that prevented me from deciding that it was indeed completed. That was when I realized that it was the rock in the hand of the elemental that needed to be a different color.  Up until this point the the rock in its hand was the same color as the main body of the elemental.  This was when I turned to both of my sisters, asking about making it grey stone instead.  That was when Heather suggested Army Painter "Rough Iron" and they both agreed that the rock in his hand needed all the veins painted with the "Weapon Bronze" that I had used previously for the hints of veins on the elemental's body.

The rock was the finishing touch that this mini needed.  I am super happy with the way that he turned out and since the time that I finished it only two days ago (at the time of writing this blog) I have continued to pick it back up and admire how amazing it turned out.  With all the thanks for the hints and tips provided to me by my sisters Heather and Tiffany.

Home Sweet Home

Well, it has been a long time since I sat down to do crafting or even think about crafting.  Let alone blogging about it.  Our family has recently moved and in the process of unpacking all the boxes and trying to find new places for all my crafts I came across a half finished project that I have pulled out and put on the crafting table with every intention of finishing it sooner then later.

My sister Amber and I years ago bought this little wood cut out project that spells the word HOME in big letters with a different shape for the O for each month depending on the season.  I am sad to say that it is not yet finished.  But maybe by blogging about it and sharing it with all of you it will get closer and closer to being finished.  So here is the first installment.  The letters themselves are painted a light brown with acrylic paint and then a black dot and dash line travels around the outside edge of each one.

The Apple itself a symbol of fall or school starting again I am honestly not sure which was painted in a custom mixed red that I like to think of as bright apple.  Then a little cream mark was painted on for the worm to exit from.  Seal it all with a satin finish wood paint sealer. Then add my favorite part and the finishing touch the worm itself.  It is made up of five green puff balls and googly eyes hot glued in placed.

Honestly I am not sure whether this lovely little apple should be used for the month of August or September.  What are your thoughts?

Home Sign Links for:
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December

Learning Ripple Stitches While Sitting on Airplanes

Spent all of last week house hunting for our upcoming move. So I took a new crochet project with me for the airplane rides and evenings at the hotel. It is coming along nicely I think and it made the flight less nerve racking so double win.

For those interested I am using the following materials for this project:

• 50 Ripple Stitches (Annies Attic: Crochet) by: Darla Sims pg. 30
• Caron Simply Soft Yarn: Pagoda
• Caron Simply Soft Yarn: Soft Green
• Premier Yarns Deborah Norville: Snow White

An Outgrown Cello Shirt Becomes a New Upcycled and Resized Cello Shirt

And another t-shirt comes into being. My daughter outgrew her favorite cello shirt and since it wasn't one the other kids would wear I turned it into a new shirt.

This project took a bit of searching at the craft store I must admit, because I wanted to keep the upcycle in theme with the previous shirt that I was reusing.  We found some musical ribbon and buttons to help finish off her shirt much to my daughter's delight.

I cut the front of the shirt out with the words and designs and then cut the rest of her old t-shirt into strips.  The strips I sewed together end to end and then folded in half and sewed the ends to make a circle.  I also sewed a loose straight stitch along the outside where the two folded edges meet so I could gather, and gather those ruffles for the sleeves.

Once that was done I took another shirt from the local craft store and ironed the previous t-shirt front to the front of the new shirt and sewed the ruffles onto the inside edge of the t-shirt sleeve.  After the ruffle was attached I sewed on the ribbon to the top of the sleeves where it would cover the stitching from adding the ruffle and around the bottom edge of the shirt, because we had the ribbon and because my daughter asked me too.  Finally I attached the buttons I could with my sewing machine and then attached the others by hand.

I couldn't be happier with the way it turned out and my daughter couldn't be happier.  I also think these little projects might just be my answer for conquering stress.

An Old Paint Stained Pair of Sweats and a New T-Shirt

My daughter had this pair of sweat pants that she had used to help paint the chicken coop and in the inside of the house and various other projects.  So they were paint stained in places.  She also put on a growing spurt recently and they had become too short for her.  So I found I had two choices.  Toss them out because lets face it her sister would never want to wear them or as she put it save them for me mom, they are my favorite pants.

So I got creative.  I removed the ankle cuffs.  No paint on those and they were in good condition.  Then I cut out the cute glittery words and accents on the pant legs.  How she managed to not get paint on those I will never know but the designs being paint free are the only thing that made this t-shirt upcycle possible.

Once that was done I played around with placement until we both liked it then I ironed on the designs to a t-shirt I bought from the local craft store when they were on sale.  Then I sewed the ankle cuffs to the sleeves and satin stitched around the sweat pants designs to give it a puckered wavy look.

She loved it and I got to be a bit creative today.  Win, Win.

Artistic Pursuits of a Young Artist

So Kyrilene came to me this afternoon when quiet time was over. I had just finished telling all the kids to pick their next thing from their lists for school, and she says: "Mom, I need to paint. That is my job." I loved this and she had a great time watercoloring scribbles all over her paper.

It reminded me of a quote that I love and wanted to share: "We might as well declare that a child should not speak unless he put his words into poetry, as to declare that he should not draw because his drawings are not artistic." Anna Botsford Comstock

What an wonderful reminder that a toddlers self expression with paints is just as important to her as my own artistic pursuits and attempts are to me.  I need to give my children art supplies more and chores less.

A Toddler's Art Appreciation

Many years ago my Grandma Marilyn Cowley painted two canvases with children's toys on them.  Toys I remember playing with when we would go to visit her.  When she passed away several years ago, these paintings were something that I inherited from her.  Up until now I have been storing them and waiting to get them framed before hanging them up.

On a whim after our recent move I hung them up in our youngest daughter Kyrilene's room.  And she reacted in an amazing way.  Immediately she was telling me thank you for her pictures and describing them to me.  She is only two years old.  This has gone on every night for a month now, until yesterday.

Our A/C died five days ago and we have had all the windows open trying to keep the house bearable until the repair can come out to fix it.  Well yesterday we had a good breeze going and it managed to knock one of the paintings off the wall.  I decided to leave it down until the wind stopped.  Poor Kyrilene was beside herself lamenting the loss of her picture and wanting to know where it went.  Logically explaining wind and why we didn't put it back up went right over our little girl's two year old head.  Eventually I distracted her with a treat and this morning the first thing we requested was her picture.

Once I put it back up on the wall she was beaming her smile at me with tears in her precious little eyes and saying "thank you mommy, my picture" or over and over again with little toddler arms wrapped around my legs hugging me with joy.

I never expected my children to become so attached to paintings I appreciated because of my childhood memories.  Especially not the child who never even got to meet her Great Grandma in person.  I would like to think that they must have had a special relationship in Heaven before our little girl joined our family.

It also reminded me of the crafting heritage I learned from her.  Grandma was an artist in every sense of the word.  She was always creating something whether it was a new painting with her artist league or the Christmas ornaments she made each year for all of her extended family.  I always looked forward to our big family Christmas dinner and seeing what beautiful creation she had made that year.  She was an amazing example of someone who was not afraid to try making something new.  It taught me that you don't have to be afraid to try something you have never done before.  This lesson has helped me teach myself many things:  cooking, sewing, drawing, painting, scrapbooking, writing, canning, blogging, gardening and even homeschooling my children.