Let’s paint a beautiful watercolor version of Little red Riding Hood. I decided to film the video on location to show you how fun it can be to just whip out your paint, your brush and some paper and enjoy nature. It was a relaxing afternoon, and you can hear the birds and insects chirping and buzzing around was I work. Like a mini holiday to the forest!
Category Archives: Art
How to clean your soft pastels
Now that I have been busy creating new mixed media collages and paintings after a long pause, I realized my soft pastels were dirty and in need of a good cleaning.
A good set of pastels (Sennelier and Rembrandt are my favorite) is an absolute necessity when you are working with mixed media, and in order to get the best of them, you must keep them clean so the color you lay down on the paper is pure….
This was definitively not the case! So, something had to be done and I set out to clean them. Want to see how I did it so you can clean your pastels too? Keep reading!
The greatest thing about the method I use is that it’s really simple and it does not use any fancy materials. In fact, you probably have what you need at home. All you need is cornstarch, and a bowl.
Just start by dumping the cornstarch on your bowl, and then drop your colors into the bowl.
See how they look before? Yuck! You are not going to get a solid color with all that dust around.
Sift the pastels and color sticks in your bowl for a minute or two and see if the colors were cleaned from your sticks.
Cornstarch is a mild abrasive, so as you rub your soft pastel color sticks in the bowl, the rubbing action will get the dust off them and they will look like new when you are done.
There! A super clean and nice pastel, ready to make beautiful things with your hands! Now go and clean yours, and create something beautiful with them!
And don’t forget to share with your friends and post in the comments your creations! I’d love to see what you do with your clean pastels!
Art Retreat with Danita! September 21st-24th in Enumclaw, WA
JOIN ME ON MY FIRST ART RETREAT!
SEPTEMBER 21 – 24, 2017 AT NW COUNTRY ART RETREATS IN ENUMCLAW, WA.
I have been creating art for more than 12 years now. Mixed media paintings, art dolls and jewelry, along with many other experimental materials that cross my path on the search for art exploration.
SIGN UP TODAY!
On the way developed a very unique art style, with melancholic faces and eyes full of a sweet sorrow that speak volumes to your soul when you look at them. On this art retreat, I will be sharing my discoveries with you.
If you have ever wondered where my style came from, how I paint the whimsical and surreal images from my mixed media paintings, how I create my watercolor girls, or how I give life to my big eyed handmade dolls, this is the perfect opportunity to learn with me!
SIGN UP TODAY!
Anyone who has taken a class with me knows that I don’t hold back anything. I love to share and see you grow. Together we will work on art projects that will give you the confidence to make your own encaustic collages with delicious smelling beeswax, magical watercolor paintings, mixed media creations and a beautiful handmade doll for you to keep.
We will be bonding together for four days as I share my secret and techniques with you on an all inclusive experience in a beautiful and tranquil setting, together with nature and in view of beautiful mount Rainier.
A once in a lifetime opportunity to make friends, art and to nurture the artist within you, and I will be delighted to meet you there.
SIGN UP TODAY!
The facilities at NW Country art retreats are just beautiful. It used to be a farm, and Lisa, my friend and owner, did an amazing job converting into an all inclusive place dedicated for art retreats.
You can learn more about NW Country Art Retreats on their Facebook page and Lisa’s website.
Choose the full retreat, including meals and lodging and a wonderful experience chatting about anything, or if time is short, individual days to learn your favorite subject with me.
SIGN UP TODAY!
EVER AFTER DISCOUNT EXTENDED!
Ever After 2017 started this week, and we have more than 600 students enrolled. amazing! I’m very happy with this, in fact so happy that the 20% OFF discount code has been extended until July 8th.
SIGN UP HERE
and use coupon code
MAGIC2017
To get 20% OFF your enrollment fee. Everyone is having an amazing time with Tam Laporte, Me and 14 more Mixed Media teachers.
If you are still on the fence, we have a sample taster lesson for you to check out. And when you are convinced, sign up with my link and coupon code! See you in class very soon!
EVER AFTER 2017 Is almost here!
I’m soooo excited to be part of another round of Ever After! We have an amazing line up for artists, teachers, lessons and stories!!
It’s only a few days to go until the magic begins in EVER AFTER 2017 and your discount code runs out!
Want to come make some magic with me?! I hope you do! And if your answer is: Yes yes! Then you’ll be super happy to know that Ever After 2017, my newest, fantastical, fabulous participation in a collaborative course all about fairy-tales and developing your own style is now open for registration! Yay! 🙂
I hope you’ll join too!! Be sure to sign up before July 1st if you want to get EA2017 @ 20% off!! 🙂 Use this code to get your discount:
MAGIC2017
(valid on all packages until July 1st!)
If you’re new to the EVER AFTER series, then let me tell you a little about this amazing class with me and 15 mixed media amazing artists.
My new online class is EVER AFTER 2017, where I participate in an amazing collaborative course! My bestie Tam Laporte ran it last year and it was super successful! Over 1500+ people joined it on the last run and we got some amazing feedback!
* From Anna Sporring: “I want to share a really, really big and loving THANK YOU to Tamara Laporte for creating this course. ♥ ♥ ♥ My inner artist has been locked away in a box for almost 50 years. I have tried to break out of it now and then during the years but always ended up back in the box again. After having gone through the first parts of the course, I can see clearly how I ended up in that box in the first place. And now I understand why it’s been such a struggle to create something of my own all this time (copying others was never a problem, but I thought I needed permission to create something on my own!) Seriously this wonderful course has brought me the KEY to get out of the box and give myself permission to be an artist!”
EVER AFTER 2017 is going to be fairy tale themed and comes with a in-depth ‘style development’ segment. Since i started as a mixed media artist, I’ve been asked the question: ‘how do I develop my own style’ most often.
On EVER AFTER 2017 each of the teachers dive in deep, connect to our own stories, learn the ins and outs of style development all the while making beautiful fairy tale inspired paintings!! 😀 It will run over 4 months, classrooms open July 1st.
If you’re not ready for style development yet then you can just buy ‘package 1’ on its own which includes all the fairy tale painting and art creating lessons from the course, taught by some of your most favourite artists and fabulous teachers in our beautiful mixed media community!
Each teacher has chosen a fairytale and will let their fairytale (or myth) inspire their lesson. I got Alice in Wonderland! My most favorite tale and I will guide you in a lengthy and detailed lesson from start to finish on how I created this beautiful painting.
We will let the fairy tales inspire our paintings and our story telling. The messages and symbolism of these tales and myths can help us develop our own voice, to be truer to ourselves and creative story telling abilities, I’m so excited to share the beautiful lessons with you! 🙂
Additionally we’ll look at how we can start telling new and different stories based on the original fairy tales (eg: how about Snow White saves the prince instead?) Or how about Alice on a motorcycle? How about twisting and changing the fairy tales so that your wish comes true? The options are endless and super super fun!! 🙂
The style development module is going to be so full of information, hints and tips, special assignments, a big juicy workbook, informative videos, demonstrations on how to derive inspiration and then take ideas to develop your style, self discovery (style development is all about getting to know yourself and telling the story of YOU, you know) and so much more. I’m super excited about both modules! 🙂
I hope you’ll join this course. It’s suitable for beginners and the more experienced! So, to read more about the fantastic Ever After Teachers, to download the class schedule, read the chosen fairy tales by your teachers and to SIGN UP
GO DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
WITH ME, ALICE, AND 15 MORE
ARTISTS AND FAIRY TALES
See you there! 🙂
Drink me
Remember I told you I was working to get ready for my upcoming class, EVER AFTER 2017? I am joining 15 amazing mixed media artists to talk about our personal styles and how to develop your own, our art and we share our secrets in a series of video classes where we create a painting just for you.
SIGN UP HERE TO SEE ME PAINT ALICE!
Well, I finally chose a painting to show in the class, and it’s this one. Drink Me by Danita. It is a mixed media painting where I use an alchemy of materials like acrylic paintings, oil pastels, watercolor pencils, paper collage, soft pastels and many other elements, that combined, make a beautiful and personal interpretation of Alice in Wonderland frozen in a moment in time, and she is now available for adoption on my online shop.
I chose Alice in Wonderland for many reasons. One of them is because it is my favorite fantasy story, non sensical and surreal as the things that go on my mind, and I love the anything can happen there.
Another reason is because I am in a transitional phase. If you have been following my art for the past couple of years, you will see that lately I am focusing on more realistic and surreal images, I am evolving. And every time there’s an evolution, Alice in Wonderland comes into my art to help me move along. I talk a lot about that search in the interview in style development that you will be able to watch when you sing up to EVER AFTER 2017.
The whimsical, childlike images are changing into more mature and realistic faces, and I am working very hard on this transition, I want to be come a bigger, better artist than before. It’s taking time and that’s why you don’t see me as active as in other years and with very experimental themes and materials.
It’s been a very difficult journey, some of my fans do not like the change I’m going trough and, to be honest, I am struggling to keep my neck above water, but I must continue in the exploration of myself and my expression as an artist.
One of the things I talk about in my interview is precisely that, how a having a personal style is good because it makes your art recognizable, but you can paint yourself into a corner if you are not careful. Evolving is a necessity to grow, and there are growing pains associated with that, but I really hope those pains are worth it.
Here’s a tiny preview of the things I talk about in EVER AFTER 2017. I really hope you can join me there and we can share what it takes to have a personal style and then sit down for a painting demo.
SIGN UP HERE FOR THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW!
In the meantime, Alice in wonderland is ready to be adopted on my online shop, as I keep on evolving and changing as an artist. Your positive words and constructive criticism are really appreciated, and believe me, that’s more true today than ever. If you have a minute or two, leave a comment telling me what do you think of my latest work in the comments section, and share this article to anyone who will be interested in the class 🙂
Love,
Danita.
Alice and friends
I’m getting ready for my upcoming collaborative class, class EVER AFTER 2017, where I join 15 mixed media artists and together we will teach you about our art and techniques, how to develop your own style and we will have painting classes for you.
I wanted to make a few painting land lessons about them, and then choose my favorite painting to teach you how I painted it, what techniques I used and more. Alice and Friends is one of the paintings I made.
This is a beautiful 8×10 Inches painting with Alice in wonderland and her friends, the cheshire cat, the white rabbit and the mad hatter, made on a thick gallery style wood panel using my mixed media techniques, combining acrylic paints, soft and oil pastels, watercolor pencils and paper collage.
It is now available in my online store, you can pick this beautiful painting to decorate your favorite wall, add it to your Danita art collection and treasure it forever.
If you missed the original painting ,or you are looking for more affordable wall art, you can pick it up as a signed print, poster or tote bag.
Memorial Weekend sale. ALL THE STORE IS 25% OFF!
I hope you are having a great long weekend! After your fun day ends and you’re ready to sit and hit the internet, remember to check out my Memorial Day Sale. EVERYTHING IS 25% OFF my online gallery and shop when you use coupon code MEMORIAL2017 on your checkout.
Have fun!
Meet the fox king: A watercolor painting time lapse
I thought it would be lots of fun to make a series of small watercolor paintings on unusual medium, just to experiment and try out new things. So I took my watercolor ground and prepared metal frames to make beautiful animal portraits.
I even created some time lapse videos so I could share with you how the paintings are made and how beautiful images seem to appear out of nowhere when I start painting.
I am thinking about creating mini classes and tutorials by expanding on the time lapses, explaining you how to create a painting like it using my techniques and style. It will be detailed like my full fledged classes, but focusing on one painting or technique at the time.
Loading ...Let me know in the poll if you’d like to see more mini-classes from me, and leave comments if you have a suggestion or idea!
If enough people is interested, you will see them coming in the near future 🙂 Thanks for answering!
Rainbow Bunny Rabbit Handmade Crayons: A fun DIY afternoon recycle project for kids.
My kids love to color with crayons. And when I mean love, I mean LOVE. We have a bucket full of any imaginable color and type, and they use them when they feel like drawing and coloring their own creations.
The problem with crayons is that as they get used up, they get stubby, and sometimes dirty, and the tips are not so usable any more and they get neglected because they do not color as they used to.
You can buy a new box, but then you end up accumulating more crayons and there’s the environmental cost of not recycling and reusing what we have.
So we decided to recycle our crayons and learn a few lessons about color mixing, doing things by yourself and being good to our planet. All in one afternoon!
First, let’s see what you need. It’s not a lot and probably you will find everything you need right at home.
List of materials.
- Used crayons (Crayola are the best!). Lots of them, the more colors the better.
- A plastic container.
- 1 Quart of hot water. (Let’s have an adult handle this please)
- 1 silicone mold for treats.
- A coloring book to try out your results.
Okay, you have everything you need? Let’s get started!
Step 1.
Pour the hot water into your plastic container. The water should be hot enough to peel off the paper from the crayons, but not too hot. Hot enough to take a warm bath should do the trick.
The paper will start coming off the crayons and they will be cleaner now. The idea is to get all the grime off of them so they are clean and ready for the next step.
Let the crayons dry up, and you can throw away the paper wrappings on the recycle bin.
Step 2.
Start breaking up the crayons into small chunks so they fit in your silicone mold. Let your kids experiment with the colors that will mix on each try and get as many combinations as you can.
You can try different colors that will mix, or maybe different hues of the same color and encourage your kids to guess what will the final colors be.
Fill the trays and try to leave as little space as possible between the colors, but don’t overfill the tray. The idea here is that when the colors melt they will mix and they should not overfill the tray.
Step 3.
Take your silicone mold full of crayon chunks and put it in your oven. It’s time to see the magic start as you create your rainbow crayons!
The melting process took about about 30 minutes with the oven at 250F. , but keep an eye on the oven, the colors will start to melt and as soon as you see that they are melted and filling the molds, it’s time to get them out. They have a tendency to burn if you use a very high temperature so don’t leave your oven unattended.
Step 4.
Let the mold cool down undisturbed so the different colors mix and harden as they get cooler. It should take an hour or so for the crayons to be ready to be taken out of the mold.
Carefully try to get one out. If it’s soft, leave it alone for a bit. Once they come out clean easily, it’s time to have fun!
The crayon chunks mix and create very interesting patterns depending on the color combinations you chose. If you use lots of small chunks, you get a rainbow effect.
If you use larger chunks, the crayons will have larger areas of color, and if you used the same hue, it will be a very nice solid color.
Step 5.
Time to enjoy your creations! My kids had a great time testing each one of the chunk crayons that turned up from this DIY recycled rainbow crayons!
They are perfect for kids. Their little hands have no trouble grabbing the colors, using and testing how they start changing colors as you use them. And adults love them too…. I had a blast making and using them too!!!!
And they can be stacked and used for building too!
I had lots of fun while me and my kids worked on this DIY project, it’s perfect as a summer activity, or an after school project. give it a try at your home!