Water Color Chickens....Easy Art

This is such a fun and easy...almost cheating way to paint a portrait...I have done it twice now, with grade school kids in my art class, with much success....the kids are always so proud...I will show you their pictures later...just have to get permission from parents...after all the are self portraits

Anyway Autumn and I painted a portrait of our chicken Pebbles (On Easter Sunday after a wonderful brunch with my family...Ahh the perfect day)...So here's how it's done.....

First of all I take the picture I want and then edit it with Picnik, using the Pencil Sketch Tool...I try to get it as light as possible... but still being able to see the lines.... I then print it on water color paper...The picture to the right is what I ended up with.... 

The next step is to trace the lines you want to show, using a black sharpie (I like the ones with a super fine tip).  After that you simply paint you portrait using water colors....The ink from the printer does run (not the sharpie)... this shows up more with the lighter colors....We just consider that shadows.  :)

You can see that I Autumn and I chose two different color themes...which is really the joy of it...If you don't like the first one you simply print up another!!!  Or you could do four different color sets for the same print...Kind-of an Andy Warhol look...or have everyone in the family paint the same picture and see how different they turn out.....

 I've seen so many great collages in Somerset Studio and have been dieing to give it a shot...So that is where I put my chicken....I'm now thinking collage may not be my style...but never the less I tried it!!

We still haven't deiced what to do with Autumns painting but we have been gathering up material...And over at Ucreate the "Create with me" project for the month of May is a jewelry holder made out of an old frame and ...you guessed it chicken wire....I have to think there a way to use Autumn's painting in that!! Go on over to Peace, Love 2 Sisters and check out their tutorial!

Any way that's my art project for the week....Join the fun and check out these link partys for more great ideas ....

Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment...I'd love to hear from you!!

You could always follow along I have so many ideas in my head ...just waiting to get done!!

Peace, Love and Hippie Beads!!

Denise