Well, its 10 years since I last painted stones - mainly because local Councils in Kent now ban removal of stones/pebbles from beaches (for very good reasons) so my source materials dried up. I have just around a dozen old stones that have been waiting for attention. The Kentish stones were quite smooth and easy to work on.
Here on Fuerteventura, the volcanic rocks/stones are much more pitted and porous, even those close to the shore where they get constantly moved around by the waves. But I brought a few to our house to 'have a go'.
I bought cheap (poor quality) brushes and tubes of acrylic from one of the local 'Euro' stores and its very true that you get what you pay for! The paints are thin and the brushes pretty awful but I persevered using far more layers than usual to try to get reasonable results.
I'd forgotten how I worked previous stones so these are pretty much made up out of my head and although they're not the best quality I've had fun ..... They still need tails (the mice characters) and I started changing the cat from cream colour to ginger/tabby so he needs more colours. All will need varnishing to withstand sun/rain as they'll be outdoor ornaments. I probably won't do any more yet until I can find a proper art shop and buy better quality materials
It whiled away time on a showery day!
Here on Fuerteventura, the volcanic rocks/stones are much more pitted and porous, even those close to the shore where they get constantly moved around by the waves. But I brought a few to our house to 'have a go'.
I bought cheap (poor quality) brushes and tubes of acrylic from one of the local 'Euro' stores and its very true that you get what you pay for! The paints are thin and the brushes pretty awful but I persevered using far more layers than usual to try to get reasonable results.
I'd forgotten how I worked previous stones so these are pretty much made up out of my head and although they're not the best quality I've had fun ..... They still need tails (the mice characters) and I started changing the cat from cream colour to ginger/tabby so he needs more colours. All will need varnishing to withstand sun/rain as they'll be outdoor ornaments. I probably won't do any more yet until I can find a proper art shop and buy better quality materials
It whiled away time on a showery day!
What happened to the cat's ear? They worked out pretty well Sue. I love them. Wish I had somewhere to put something like that. Wish I could paint in the first place of course. Will you leave them in Fuerte, I guess so, luggage would be too heavy, right?
ReplyDeleteWow! You do a beautiful job with your painting! Why can't you take stones from the beach? Does that apply to all stones or just the large ones? Come to Cape Cod where I live....we have all the stones you could ever want!
ReplyDeleteCool, Sue! These are the only mice I'd want in my home and I'm sure the cat keeps these in check!
ReplyDeleteYou certainly do get what you pay for with cheap artists supplies but acrylic paints seem to require lots of layers no matter what.
These are precious little guys though and you did great with them!
look pretty good to me :)
ReplyDeleteI have all kinds of beach stones i would send you if they weren't so heavy, plenty of beaches around here don't have any signs or laws against rock collecting that I know of
Wow!! Wonderful work on these stones Sue! I remember when my Mom and Dad visited Circus World many years ago (Orlando, Florida) they were riding on a camel and I took a photo which later I painted them on a rock....I still have it! It was so much fun painting on it.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do more....LOVE it!
Thanks for commenting. The councils put the ban in place to stop 'rogue' landscapers taking lorry loads of stones/pebbles for their gardening work. The stones help to create flood defences and removing too many would alter the structure of the beaches
ReplyDeleteI did have fun with these and will look out for better paints but art shops are few and far between here so might have to wait till we visit the island's capital. There are some school supply shops around so they might have what I need.
Any that I paint here will stay in Fuerteventura as 'fun' garden ornaments. We only have a small garden (fully tiled for low maintenance) with a pool out the back. To the front we have a couple of small 'beds' where I grow local succulent Aloe Vera plants as they survive weeks without water if we're not around. The stones will brighten these areas a little
These are good fun Sue, reminds me of long ago when I did some of these, I have a cat almost identical to yours, he was a calico cat and sits in the garden now slowly loosing his paint, along with a fox, foal, deer and rabbit. I found that people would only want to spend a pound or two and the amount of work that went into them, they became too much trouble for too little return.
ReplyDeleteThey are fun aren't they Bev. I'm doing them just for my own garden out here on Fuerteventura.
ReplyDeleteMy ten year old ones in England are still doing remarkably well - I think I used 2 layers of varnish on each and the colour is holding up OK - although the mice lost their tails some time ago. At that time
I used ideas/models from a book by Lyn Wellford (I think that's her name) so maybe you did the same ... sounds as though we did the same kind of animals.
Yep, had that book Sue, I was looking for things to try and make my art pay for itself, but this was not the way! LOL! The ones I kept inside are still perfect, but the one I put in the garden have suffered somewhat.
ReplyDelete