paint cut paste

you may remember our watercolor silhouette father’s day gift from this summer… well, we did an acrylic version most recently that i wanted to share with you.

i used much the same process in making this one that i used for the watercolor version. i printed the same silhouette (from photo i took in spring – see instructions on the father’s day blog entry) onto contact paper. then i carefully cut it out with good scissors.

after peeling the adhesive off, i stuck it onto a pre-gessoed square canvas. (this one is 12″ x 12″.)

i mixed up a lovely neutral cafe-con-leche-esque color of acrylic paint and covered the entire canvas with it, including the sides. after the first coat was dry, i repeated with a second coat.

once the entire thing was dry, i carefully peeled off the silhouette sticker to reveal a white outline of my daughter’s cute head.

i then sprayed the whole canvas with clear acrylic coating to seal it and give it all a shine.

we gifted it to my mom (N’s “gwee”) for her birthday, and she loved it!

oh, i have been wanting to try this for years, and i finally got around to it this father’s day! i remember thinking about doing this when N was just born, but (weirdly enough??) i kinda of wanted to wait until she had a substantial ponytail. ha! anyway, the timing was perfect for this custom, heartfelt, handmade, on-the-cheap dad’s day gift.

here’s how we did it: i took a nice profile photo of N against a white wall one day after preschool. i asked her to keep her chin up and give a little smile. (you should see some of the hilarious outtakes during this process… )

then i used my photo editing program to turn it to black and white, and pump up the contrast. (i use pixelmator because it’s free, works well, and i can’t afford to update my old version of photoshop to be compatible with my macbook. you can probably do all of this with any very basic photo editing program.) you may need to play around a bit with things like invert, posterize, and threshold to get the right feel for a simple black and white silhouette. i turned the inside of it white, so as not to use up all of my printer ink. here are some of my steps along the way:

i printed it onto contact paper sheets with my inkjet printer. (i made a small one and a larger one because i wasn’t sure which to use.) i caaarefeully cut out N’s silhouette. then i wiped any excess ink off of the contact paper with a towel before peeling it off and sticking it onto thick watercolor paper. i ended up using the large one for this project, with 11×15″ watercolor paper.

after it was stuck down securely (especially around the edges) i used a soft, fairly fat brush to wet the page around the edges of her face. then N chose blue watercolor paint (daddy’s favorite color) to drop into the water. (wet on wet watercoloring technique.)

i had to work fairly quickly so the paint would not dry out and create weirdness (which happened anyway along the bottom, but i’m okay with that.) when the painting was totally dry, i peeled off the clear contact paper. i was so happy it came off the watercolor paper in such a clean way!

peeling, revealing

we framed it in a simple and lovely matted frame. N and i were so happy with the finished product!

so was daddy! this image is going to hang in our family photo gallery in our stairwell. we like to mix art in with our photographs when displayed – and this one sort of counts as both.

hope all the dads and granddads out there had a beautiful weekend!

today i have the absolute pleasure and honor of guest blogging on one of my super-duper-favorite blogs, mamaroots! chris willow, of mamaroots, is a talented toymaker extraordinaire and such an inspiring writer, healer, and momma!

chris makes these beautiful wooden toys, which bless our home in just about every nook and cranny… so what on earth was i thinking when the art material i shared on her blog was WOOD when i know nearly nothing about woodworking!?? haha! perhaps it is the inspiration of chris and our lovely pacific coastline with its magical driftwood…

but i was called to post this simple driftwood mobile we created as a family. it’s a paired-down, less-is-more version of the beach treasure mobile we shared here last week. don’t you love how mobiles are all about moving in the wind and all about balance? please hop over to mamaroots to check out my guest post over there today.

so easy, so lovely. so perfect for father’s day.

*wink wink*

this quick craft was born out of our need for more magnets to hold up the art on our fridge! bonus: a set of these makes for a lovely, personalized mother’s day, father’s day, or teacher appreciation gift!

N found some lovely, flat, lightweight rocks (sandstone) at the beach a few weeks ago which seemed like the perfect natural material for lovely magnets.

we got out our ink pads and N made some colorful thumbprints on the rocks.

i doodled a few different critters on the thumbprint with a sharpie after N ran off to play elsewhere, though in retrospect (yikes!) i really should have let her capable hands do this! momma couldn’t resist – i love fingerprint art.

(psst - my amazingly talented fiber artist friend, kenden, wove this cloth for me on her loom)

we used elmer’s household cement to secure a little magnet to the backs of the rocks.

now our fridge is all kinds of fingerprint fancy!

oh, are you wondering about what the frog magnet says? it’s to remind us of thich nhat hanh’s concept of froglessness.

we’ve been having fun preparing for father’s day over here…N made some papa portrait cards for her dad and grandfathers.

here are her portraits. (yep, she essentially has 4 grandfathers. modern families.)

we also turned a really cool magnadoodle image of hers…

(child's name covered for privacy)

into a great travel coffee mug for her dad on cafepress.com! (i love this idea of using your child’s art on everyday products. sure beats logos and advertising for other companies!)

(child's name covered for privacy)

N painted a wooden picture frame for her dad at preschool a couple of weeks ago, complete with a photo taken by her teacher.

we added the frame and the mug to a gift basket with lots of his favorite goodies.

one of N’s traditions is to make mom’s day and dad’s day signs… last year in 2009, her sign looked like this:

but this year, she was able to write and illustrate her own sign – hooray!

happy father’s day to all the dads, granddads, godfathers, uncles, and all of the amazing men who love & support our children!