Painting inspired by Grimm´s Fairytale

Hello everybody!

 

One of my favorite ways to personalize a room is by surrounding myself with artwork done by myself or people I care about. The results may not be perfect, but they feel infused by love.

Today, I want to share the making of this painting with you. It is pretty easy to do and I adore the fact that it incorporates books (I just plain love to read!).

The silhouette shows two characters from my favorite Grimm´s fairytale, “Brüderchen und Schwesterchen” 

meaning “ brother and sister ".

 

 

Cost *

Difficulty **

You need:

- Canvas, whichever size you like

- An old book (Fitting my theme, I chose one about the forest, and I love the antique look of the font (Sütterlin)).

- teabags (black tea)

- white acrylic paint

- baking parchment

- a middle-size brush, glue  and a cutter

 1. Cut out the printed part of the book. I know that some people consider it kind of sacrilegious  to destroy a book. So if you cannot stand the thought of hurting the poor thing, I suggest you copy the pages onto thick, grainy paper ; - ).

2. Next you need to darken the paper so it forms a better contrast to the white paint. Swipe the teabags over the pages after dunking them (the teabags, not the pages!)  in hot water. I suggest you wear gloves because the water is hot and your fingers will get all shrivelly, dry and brown (I did NOT wear gloves). Once the pages are dry, repeat the process until you feel the paper is dark enough. I did about 5 swipes.

3. Glue the pages to the canvas in different angles. Let them overlap.

4. Chose a motif. It must be something that works well as a silhouette – perhaps your daughter`s head, your favorite apple tree or your cat sitting on the window seat?

I found a beautiful picture of a young deer online. For the girl I asked my cousin to pose in a long dress. Print the picture and mark the outline with a pen. If you have several pictures, copy them bigger or smaller until the sizes fit together. I had to give shrinking the deer several tries.

5. Place the baking parchment on top of your picture and trace the outline. Then, carefully, cut out the template.

6. Choose the right spot for the motif and place the template on that part of the canvas. Now comes the trickiest part. Carefully dab white paint on the motif´s edge without shifting the parchment at all. Use enough paint to really cover up the darkened pages. Once you have finished the whole outline you can lift off your template. Look how pretty it is!

7. The rest of the picture you can paint pretty fast. As my canvas is pretty tall and my motif only fills up a small part, I graduated the color, placing less paint towards the upper end of the canvas to let the darkened pages shimmer through. This way, there is some action going on up there as well and the picture looks better balanced.

I really like the simplicity of this picture, which in my eyes does not hinder but rather showcases it´s beauty.

So choose your motif and try out how good it can look as a simple silhoutte!

Yana
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