Introducing my Next Guest Blogger - Meg Mader - the person behind NAR Design & The Country Business Mums workshops & luncheons in Clare!

     

Thankyou so much to my next guest blogger, Meg Mader for sharing her painting tutorial! 

When I was asked by Kathryn, along with many wonderful creative women, if I would like to do a guest blog I immediately jumped at the chance and then thought ‘what on Earth do I write about?’. For those of you who don’t know me, I organise events for Country Business Mums which is how I met Kathryn. I feel like a bit of an imposter being a part of the Handmade in SA community but as it turns out it has been a wonderful excuse to get back into painting.

In a past life I used to paint. Every day I did something because it was fun and messy and expressive and just wonderful for the soul. Then I fell in love, had children and … no time. There was always something more important to do. So here it is – my big return to painting. Please excuse the dodgy work but it has been quite a while.

My favourite way to paint is finger painting. Here is my step-by-step finger painting nude:

Materials – A stretched canvas, some acrylic paint, water soluble oil pastels and some cotton buds (they act as tiny fingers).

Find an image of a nude to work from then start with a light sketch of shape and shade.

Darken the shadows and add some highlights if you like.

Add a few blobs of paint.

Here comes the fun part! Spread the lovely paint around with your fingers. Make sure you work it into the areas that you have pastel.

If there is too much paint wipe off the excess.

Using a palette (or better yet – your hand!) get some fresh paint to use for highlighting with your fingers and the cotton buds.

Squirt on some paint for the background and spread it all around (don’t forget the sides of the canvas!)

And done! (NB It is good to try and get some background colour in the image and some image colour in the background)

Ok, so it’s quite messy and amateurish but it was fun and I really feel like I achieved something today – and I don’t mean getting the dishes done!!

So I challenge you, next time the kids are doing it, get in on the act and have some fun!