For today’s Creative Play Challenge prompt, we’re going to pull out the paint pens, markers, pencils, and paint, and draw on an unconventional surface. Your inner perfectionist might quake at the thought of drawing on something that is not in the paper or canvas family, but pushing yourself past “normal” surfaces to draw on will open you to a world of possibilities when it comes to art-making.
For this project, I pulled out my new set of Jane Davenport paint pens. I have been using them in my art journals and on canvas and so far, I’ve loved how opaque and bright the ink is. (Insider tip: store these paint pens cap down so the paint flows down into the felt tip and keeps it moist.)
First, I took a tour of our apartment, looking for an item or two to decorate. I found a glass jar (shown in the top image) that I’ve used for canning and decided to give it a go with the paint pen. I’ll admit that I’m not sure how long the pen will last on this surface, but today was all about experimentation, not longevity. 🙂 These paint pens are permanent and archival, though, for most surfaces.
Next, I came across a couple of knitting needles. I colored the tops in (not pictured) and added some polka dots. That was fun. (P.S. Aren’t the pen names too cute? Starfish is the pink pen that I used next.)
My daughter has an art table that came with two chairs. Last summer, I thought I was going to paint the chairs white and doodle all over them but that never happened. I only ended up painting one small piece.
After that, I didn’t know what to do with the chair. I had a lot of different ideas and in retrospect, I realize I was overthinking the project. It’s not like I was decorating them so I could sell them. So I told Little Ms. Perfectionism to go out for a nice walk since it was a sunny day, and I pulled out the paint pens to draw on this unconventional surface that is a chair.
I’ll not lie, it was kind of interesting to try to draw at this angle. It especially became interesting when my daughter pulled out the second chair and began to draw on it with a crayon.
“No! Agh!” was my first response and then I realized what an example I was being as I was happily drawing right in front of her. So I took a big breath (Little Ms. Perfectionism must have come back from her walk, so I asked her to leave again), and decided we were both going to decorate our chairs. I drew ‘create’ and she wrote it in her small preschool handwriting on her chair. It was actually a fun experiment.
I’m not completely thrilled about how my chair turned out, though I like it better than how it looked before I started. Still, the truth is, I can always paint over the doodles I made today and start again. The beauties of paint!
So . . . what unconventional surface will you draw on today? Will it be a plastic hanger? A pencil? A tennis shoe? I’d love to hear your ideas!
Have a lovely {and creative} day!
4 responses to “Draw On An Unconventional Surface”
My son is obsessed with using dry erase markers on my kitchen counter. (A habit I started, lol.) I don’t mind though. It wipes right off. Love this. #TIUT
Oh my goodness, I love this! As long as it’s easy cleanup, you might as well, right?
This is the type of project my kids love. My mother had some old wooden kitchen cutting boards she was going to throw away. Instead, my kids spent an afternoon painting them and had a lot of fun. As long as they’re not painting the walls (which they did already, we had a interesting mural in our living room a while ago), I’m Ok with pretty much anything else.
Thank you for sharing at The Really Crafty Link Party this week. Pinned!
Oh my goodness, I’m nervous about mural work. We’ve had a few attempts too but thankfully most of the creativity has been kept to the art table. 🙂 I love the idea of painting old cutting boards. How clever!