Skull-A-Day 4.0 - Tutorial - #12 Skull with Flowers

Like I mentioned in my related Dia de la Abby post, I used acrylic paint, a paint brush and a paint pen to paint this. Since this was my 1st time really experimenting with acrylic paint, (I usually use it full strength and for nothing exciting) I decided to write a tutorial for the techniques I used.

Finished Piece

Supplies:

• Acrylic Paint - In this piece, I used Hot Pink, Red, Orange, Yellow, Bright Green, Turquoise, Blue, Purple, Black, White and Gold
• Fine Tip Black Paint Pen - These can be a bit expensive, but they last a long time.
• White Canvas - You want white, unless you want a different colored skull. I have white paint on the skull, but it would be much harder to do if the canvas wasn't white. This is also good for the techniques I used
• Small paint brush - For fine details
• Medium paint brush - For not so fine detail and large surface coverage...like the back ground
• A Small Glass of Water - This is to rinse your brushes when you change colors and also for a water color effect on one technique
• Paper Towels - Good for cleaning brushes and to test paint strength
• A Pencil - As with other pieces, I drew this one out on the canvas 1st before painting
• Something to squirt your paint on - Small containers for paint, a paint palette, a paper plate, etc. I use paper shot glasses...you know the kind you use for jello shots...or a small drink of water...yeah water...

Instructions:

1. Using the pencil, lightly draw your design on the canvas. Erase errors the best you can.
2. Using the fine tip paint pen, trace over your design.
3. Time for colorful paint! I'll explain this flower to flower...to creature. Click on the names for real photos of the items. This helps as a reference tool.
4. After painting, use the Black paint pen to go over all your lines again. Be careful to cover them where you originally made them.
5. I used the black paint, small paint brush and medium paint brush to paint the back ground. This took the longest, but it really makes the colors pop.

Paint guide:

• Blue Daisies (Felicia amelloides)- The centers are yellow with a bit of gold mixed in. I used thin layers, so both colors blended together. The top layers of petals are in turquoise. For the shading on the bottom layer of petals, I mixed a little black with the turquoise. I put water on my brush, dipped in the mixed paint and then painted the shading. This thinned out the paint, made a water color effect and made blending into the tips easier
• Blue Purple Hydrangeas - I used a thin layer of blue paint to paint the center and inner petal sections. I used a thin layer of purple paint for the tips of the petals. I also used the water color technique (water on brush, dip tip lightly in paint, paint canvas) to blend the two colors at their meeting points.
• Sunflower - The center is gold. It's the only area that I did not redo the black on. I painted all the petals yellow. Then, I used the water color technique with orange to shade and add some color variation to the petals.
• Lotus - I painted the petals white (mostly to cover any pencil marks that showed). I used the water color technique to add the pink to the petals.
• Red Pink Carnation -I used hot pink for the center and insides of the petals. I used red for the outside edges.
• Ferns - I used bright green to cover all the leaves. I mixed a little bit of black in the bright green. I used the water color technique for shading.
• Male Yellow Tiger Swallowtail - I used yellow for the wings and body.
• Caterpillar (I thought this was the caterpillar to the Yellow Tiger Swallowtail, but apparently not...oh well, it's still pretty) - I used bright green for the body. I used the wate color technique for the black stripe on the body.

Close up of left side

Close up of right side