The winter season is here and I’m spending more time indoors working on various arts and craft projects. Last week I sat down and did some doodling onto small sized clam shells and then painted them. This type of artwork doesn’t require any artistic skills. You simple draw and doodle what appeals to YOU. It’s all about what YOU like and feel at the time.
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If you don’t have access to seashells you can do this project on smooth river rocks, ceramic tiles or on small sized canvas art boards. I used small clam shells that I collected from the beach several months ago. Some artists like to call this type of artwork as Zen Tangle.
Getting started…if you’re working with seashells, rocks or ceramic tiles I recommend that you base coat them with 1-2 coats of white acrylic paint. This base coat will help the colors applied on top to be more vivid…instead of dull. Let the base coat thoroughly dry.
For all of the design work I used two different packs of Acrylic Paint Markers. I purchased both packs from Amazon.
Betem Acrylic Paint Markers – these require no priming, no clogged tips and no drippy messes. Each marker has a dual tip…a medium and fine. Use the medium to color in larger areas. Use the fine tip to color in smaller areas or to do outlining.
Tooli-Art Acrylic Paint Markers – I like to use the fine tip black and white Tooli-Art Markers when doing outlining and fine details like slash marks, dots, swirls, wordage, etc.
Do all of your design work on top of the painted background. You can see that some of my designs are more intricate than others. You can use whatever color combinations that appeal to you. You want the design work to cover the entire surface. Once done…let them dry until the paint is no longer tacky.
You can seal the designs by one of two different methods:
Spray-On Clear Acrylic Sealer
Brush-On Mod Podge Clear Sealer
I personally like to use Mod Podge Sealer and will apply two light coats across the top of each seashell with 30 minutes of drying time between coats. You can take a fine point black Sharpie Marker to sign and date your artwork on the backside of the seashell.
Doodling and painting is a great way to relieve stress. You sit down and create. This type of art and crafts project doesn’t take a lot of time, requires no artistic skills and doesn’t cost a lot of money. It’s all about what designs and colors appeal to you!!!