PAINTING

Paper earrings! My new favorite things to make.

The first set of earrings I made were Matisse collage inspired earrings. I saw a lot of Matisse-inspired earrings on Pinterest and I loved the idea so I made some of my own.

To make paper earrings, you need 3 thick, cardstock type pieces of paper, or two pieces of paper with a piece of thin cardboard in between. Using only paper works a lot better though when you cut out the earring shapes.

How I make paper earrings:

Cut out 3 pieces of the same size of cardstock paper
Mod podge each layer together
Put the paper layers under a heavy book until dry
Figure out what shape or painted design you want to create for your earrings. For the Matisse earrings, I painted dots on one of the papers. For my fruit earrings, I painted fruit on each side of the paper
Cut out the shapes from the paper
Apply a matte or gloss varnish to the paper so it is secure
Poke a hole using a pin/needle in the top of the paper shape
Poke through the hole with a jump ring or earring hook and fasten

Next, I made a pair of fruity paper earrings. I followed the same steps above, but I added a lot more detail with paint. I LOVE how these turned out. I love how I can create fun and unique earrings using only paper and paint.

Unrelated – this week I’m teaching lessons on polka dots and Aboriginal art to my elementary students, and today I wore a full polka dot outfit to match my lessons and I’m very pleased. I am slowly achieving my goal of becoming Ms. Frizzle 🙂

Some of the process (I didn’t really take any other process pics, I mostly just painted fruit)

I was inspired by these earrings I saw on Pinterest: Earrings

I have always struggled with painting faces, so I decided to try and recreate portrait paintings from master artists and hopefully become better at painting faces. In the past, I would try and paint a face, and then I would quickly give up if it didn’t look right. In doing this painting, I realized how many layers are needed to create a lifelike, three-dimensional figure. I also discovered that it is okay if my painting looks bad at the beginning because it will look better and better as I continue painting. The overall process was actually really fun, and I especially enjoyed glazing my painting at the end.

The pictures below show my painting process of my study of Artemisia Gentileschi’s Self-Portrait as a Lute Player. My painting definitely isn’t perfect, but I am happy with how it turned out, although I may do a few more adjustments after I post this.