Painting Gemstones

This is a technique I’ve developed for adding gemstones to a painting.

I took a sheet of watercolor paper and painted a lot of different streaks on it. I don’t remember what kind of brush I used, but it was some kind of flat. I wanted a range of line styles, so I wet the paper in a few places to get more bleed. I also crisscrossed the lines in several places.

Now when I need a gem, I cut it from this sheet. Sometimes I will cut the shape out of a blank piece of paper that I can overlay as a stencil and see what the resulting gem will look like.

After cutting out the shape I glue it onto the painting using a thick acrylic gel medium.

I’ve used this technique a few times and really like the result.

it's a small world Moai Statues

I made some scale replicas of the Moai statues from it’s a small world in Disneyland (one of my favorite attractions). I designed the papercraft template in Illustrator and printed it on card stock. As I assembled the pieces, I stuffed the inside with layers of shredded paper and wood glue. I textured the assembled models with acrylic modeling paste and then painted them with acrylics. I’m really happy with how they turned out.

Paint Caps

I save (hoard) plastic milk caps to use for little paint mixing cups. To keep them from drying out while I’m doing a painting I store them in a sealable container with a wet sponge inside. They’ll keep for a few weeks this way.