Transcripts
1. Welcome: It might look like we're getting ready to decorate a cake, but we're actually going
to use this frosting like technique to create
beautiful ornaments using acrylic paint. If you're looking
for a unique gift or a fun project to do with your family during
your holiday break, then this ornament
painting class is for you. Hello, artists. I'm Amy Murray, a full time painter, Mom to three kids, a woodle and a little
bird named Melody. I'm so happy you came
here to paint today. And I wore my Christmas
sweater just for this class. If you've taken
any of my classes, you know that I love adding
texture to my acrylic paint. Over the last decade, I've sold over 1,300
texture acrylic paintings using the
same techniques that I'm going to
teach you here today. In this class, we will focus
on two texture painting techniques that
will help you truly paint a one of a kind
Christmas ornament. Together we will paint a ceramic ornament
that is inspired by the beautiful winter berries that pop up outside
this time of year. This class is great for
artists of all levels. Beginners are welcome. However, some of
the techniques we use might take a little
bit of practice. To make your ornament, you'll need a few supplies. A plain ceramic ornament,
acrylic paint brushes, a pointed palette knife, a pretty ribbon acrylic varnish, a piping bag, and of course,
some modeling paste. I would love it if you decided to share a picture
of your ornament. You can do that here on Skill
Share by clicking on the Projects and Resources tab and
uploading a picture there. Please visit my website, Alyn Murray.com for
more artist resources. Every month, I send a quick free painting tutorial to all of my newsletter
subscribers. For all of my class updates, please feel free to click the green follow button
here on Skill Share. Now if you're ready to
jump in and get started, let's talk a little bit more
about our class project.
2. Our Project: A Hand-Painted Ornament: The project for this class
is a ceramic ornament featuring beautiful three
dimensional winter berries on a starry night sky. You are welcome to paint your
ornament just like mine, but you don't have to. You can also take the techniques
that we do together in this class and
create an ornament that is totally unique
to your own style. Here are just a few
examples of ornaments that I've created using
textured acrylic paint. You can choose your own
colors and make your ornament as simple or
complex as you would like. Please feel free to go with your own personal preference
on these and don't worry. We will walk through every
step of the process together. We'll gather our supplies. We'll paint the background
of the ornament. We'll add branches and stars. Then we'll use our frosting
bag to pipe on the berries. We will use our palette knife
to add the chunky leaves. We'll finish the ornament with a nice coat of varnish
to keep it protected. And finally, we'll add a really pretty ribbon
to make it extra fancy. Here in the project section, you can post a photo
of your ornament. You can also ask for advice or add photos of your
projects along the way. You'll end this class with
a lovely painted ornament that is perfect for gifting or hanging on your
own Christmas tree. In my opinion,
ornaments that are handmade are the most
meaningful of all. Next, we will talk about some class resources that I have created to help you along.
3. Helpful Resources : I've included a few resources that you might find
helpful in this class. Remember that to access and download the
resources you'll need to open skill share in a
browser instead of the app. First, you'll find a supply list so that you don't have to
write down each supply. As I mentioned it in the video, I've tried to include details on this list to help with any
questions you might have. Second, I've made a bonus guide to packing and shipping
your ornaments. This has definitely been a process of trial
and error for me. I'm giving you all my tips to make the process easier for you. If you have any questions, please feel free to post
those in the discussion tab. I am more than happy to answer
anything along the way. Next I will talk about the supplies that you
need for this project.
4. Gather Your Supplies: To paint your ornament, you'll need several supplies. I will go over them
briefly in this video, but I do encourage
you to check out the supply list that I have provided in the resource
section on that list. I give all of the
specific colors, the brands I prefer, and all of the details
so that you don't have to worry about
writing everything down. As to paint your ornament, you will need a few supplies. A plain ornament. This one is made of
ceramic bisque fired. It's not glossy and I just found it at a
local craft store. Next, you'll need some paint. You're welcome to choose
any colors you would like. If you want to know the
specific colors I'm using, you can find that in
the class resources. Third, you'll need
some modeling paste. I will be using a
light modeling paste, but you can use whatever
you have on hand. Then you'll need a pastry bag or crossing bag that you can find typically in a bakery
section of your store. We will be using that to load our modeling
paste plus paint. And we will be piping
on our berries. With that, you'll need a
variety of paint brushes. Definitely a little
thin liner brush and then maybe a couple
square size brushes. Next, you'll need
a palette knife. I definitely recommend having
one with a pointy tip. Whether it's a larger size or smaller size,
you can use either. I like to use this
nice big round one just for mixing my paints.
You'll need a ribbon. I'm using this red
velvet ribbon, and it's about 14 to 16 " long, A pair of scissors
to cut your ribbon. Last, you'll need some varnish to keep your ornament protected. I also recommend
having water and a paper towel for
clean up. That's it. Once you've gathered
all of your supplies, you might be ready to
jump into painting. But I do have a little bonus material for
you before we start on that. I don't know if you
can hear my bird. She talks every time I talk.
5. Bonus Tips Before We Begin: It might seem odd to give you bonus material before
you get started. But trust me, you will
be thankful for it, especially if you plan to
make a lot of ornaments, Either to sell them or
to give them as gifts. These are my three best tips that I've learned through
a lot of trial and error, but I am giving them to you here to save you a ton of time. Top tip number one, use a pasta drying rack. Before the rack, I was
finding little spots all over my house to hang
my ornaments to dry. I was even getting creative and making places to hang
these ornaments to dry. Then I remembered
inside my pantry, I had this pasta drying rack. And let me tell you, I've only made pasta
one time in my life. I got the rack out and
I have it right here. And this thing is amazing for
hanging ornaments to dry. When we use the modeling
paste with the acrylic paint, it does take a full
day to dry completely. You want a safe place to store your ornaments
while they're drying. If you're just making
one or two ornaments, you probably don't
need the pasta rack. But if you're making a bunch
of them, it is perfect. Second, I want to
teach you how to save your paint inside
your piping bag. I started my ornament
making process by mixing small batches of paint every time I made a new
group of ornaments. But over time, I learned
how to just make a big batch and save it inside the piping bag so
that it stays nice and soft. It's super simple and maybe
seems obvious to you, but to save your paint
inside your bag, just empty the tip of the bag by sliding any paint out
of it or backwards. Then fold over the tip and secure it with
tape or a paper clip. Your paint will stay soft until you're ready
to use it again. My third tip, when you're
painting the leaves, is to make a large batch of
paint and save it forever, Or at least until you're
ready to use it again. When I was painting the
leaves on my ornaments, I was just mixing up small
batches of green paints. And I kept finding
that it would dry on my palette before
I could use it up, or I would mix too much and it would go to
waste when I was done. These empty paint tubes
were the perfect solution. You can mix a batch of paint, load the tube, and squeeze it out little by little
as you need it. This avoids both paint drying on your palette before you can
use it and wasting paint. You don't need to do any of these things in
order to take the. Please don't let any of these tips hold back
your creativity. But if you find that
any of this will make your process a
little more efficient, please feel free
to use these tips. Now we are finally ready to
get started on our ornament. The first step is to
paint the background.
6. Paint the Background: We are ready to get started. I have my plain
ceramic ornament here. It came with this
thin red ribbon and we're going to switch this out later for a much prettier one. But I like to leave it
on while I'm painting, so I have a little
something to hold on to. We are going to start by
painting the background. I am three shades of blue. My darkest blue is going to
be my predominant color. This is the exact
shade that I am using. But I would say go with whatever you have
in your paint box. Just load some on my brush and I do not remove
this golden part. I've tried that and
I found that it doesn't do good things for the
integrity of the ornament. What I'm doing here
is just working right around that top gold piece with a layer of my darkest blue. The string might feel like it's getting in
the way a little bit, but trust me, you want to leave it so
you can hang it to dry? I'm taking my darkest,
darkest blue and just carefully working
around in a circle. If you are not confident cutting in close to the
golden piece here, you could tape it off
with a little piece of tape so that you make sure you
don't get any paint on it. We're just working
our way around. I will go I guess till
about halfway down. The ornament with the
darkest color blue, If it does look a
little bit translucent, that will depend on your paint. This is a heavy body acrylic. It is pretty thick and will
cover just fine in one coat. If you're working with
thinner acrylic paint, you might want to put two coats on before you move
to the next color. I've got my dark blue
all the way around, about halfway down the ornament. Then I'm going to switch
to my next shade, it's slightly lighter, a
light navy blue color. I'm going to work that around
and I want to blend these. I found the easiest way to
blend the light with the dark, if they start to dry
a little bit on you, is just to put a tiny bit
of water on your brush. And lightly brush that
water over the two areas. And it will blend those
two colors together here. I will do that again for you. I'm putting my Navy on there. Then I'm going to get a little
bit of water on my brush, blend those two colors together. We are moving from at the
top to light at the bottom. Now if you don't
blend it perfectly, that is really fine because
you're going to put branches and berries and
leaves over the top. That will cover any
blending issues that you might
have in this step. Next, I'm going to
take my lighter blue. This is a sky blue
and I'm going to mix it in with my previous shade. Just come to the edge of
that color that I just did. This is in between. This is a medium blue. In between navy shade and not quite your
sky blue just yet. We are going to get
that on there again. Feel free to go around each layer twice if you
feel like your paint isn't covering
like you'd want it to just work my way
around the ornament. Blending those two
layers together, none of this is a rule
you have to follow, it's just how I'm
painting my ornament. But you could do a
gray background, you could do a
purple background. Really, ever color you
like maybe a dark green? It's completely up to you. I am just filling in the bottom with my
lightest shade of blue. Putting a little
water on my brush, and blending those
two colors together. Now, one thing you might want to do is on
this bottom part, do a nice light circle of blue just to add
some good variety. I'm going to take a little
water on my brush and blend that in there you have it. That's the background
color for your ornament. And you can see it goes from super dark
blue at the top of the ornament down to a
lighter blue at the bottom. I'm going to let that
dry completely and then the next thing we will
do is add our branches.
7. Paint the Branches: This background is
completely dry. Now we're going to
start painting in the branches of our little
winter berry plants. I just go for it
and start painting. However, if you're not super
confident about doing that, you're welcome to take
a pencil and sketch in your branches before
you start painting, I'm just using a white
paint so that it has nice contrast on
that blue background. Again, feel free to use any paint color that
you would like. My goal here is to vary the
height of the branches. I'm going to want some
to be down lower, some up higher,
some in the middle, so that there's
just a nice variety as we move around the ornament. I like to start at the
top of the branch, so that I know how
high it's going to be. From the very start,
I have to start with a Y and then add some branches
coming out from there. Some larger ones, maybe they
meet the stem together. You can have some shooting off to the side a
little bit more. This little branch is going to end right at the bottom
of that ornament. Now once I have the basic shape of this particular branch, then I'm going to add
some little twigs sticking off those
main branches. Maybe they'll be a larger one
with some little guys here, maybe some extra small
ones at the bottom. That is fine for this one. Too simple, not too complex. Remember, we're going to
be putting berries and leaves on top of these branches. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to
mark in the space. Now this one goes to the top. Then what I like
to do when I make my next branch is make
the height different. This one I will do a
little bit shorter. He might be a
little more simple, a small little branch, but they will meet near each other at the
bottom of the ornament. Again, I'm just making
the shape up as I go. That's the basic process of
creating these branches. I'm going to finish my
branches and speed up my camera so that you can see the whole process of painting. These one tip as you are painting these, especially if you
are not confident in your branch painting skills or maybe you don't see
yourself as a painter, but you want to be able to
make something like this. Is just to focus on lines that are forming
shapes over and over again. Here, I just made a
shape on this branch. I'm making another shape. If you break down your
full branch and just think of it as tiny Y shapes, it becomes a little
bit less intimidating. You'll notice here
I smudged my paint. I'm not going to fix it. I'm not even going
to worry about it. I'm just going to
come back to it and put a little berry or a leaf right on top and
cover that right back up. I have a tendency
to overdo things. Minimalism is not
my strong point. I usually have to tell myself to stop painting the branches, but you can make it however
you like it for you. I feel good about
that. Our next step, now that we've painted all
of our little branches, is to make the sky painted
like a starry night sky.
8. Paint the Stars: To make our starry sky. We're going to use
a technique where we build up a little space from darkest to lightest so that it actually looks like it's
shining or glowing in the sky. To do this, you can start
with a color that is almost as dark as the background and you'll
just make a circle. I will do this one
section so that you can see the technique
and then I will probably speed up my camera while
I do the rest of the sky. I'm just making
tiny little circles in a variety of colors. Space them apart randomly, like the stars in
the sky would be. You can see they don't even
look like stars yet, right? They're just little circles that are almost as dark
as that background color. You don't have to
wait for that to dry. But you'll then
take a little bit more of like a sky blue shade. We will just put a
little bit of that on the inside of each of these
little starry circles. With this color, I might even just add some tiny
little background stars. Then we will take
some of our sky blue. I'm taking this
lighter blue here. Even adding that to the middle and you can see how
it starts to glow a little bit from
light in the middle to a faded blue on the outside. It just gives these stars
that little halo effect. Now you'll notice some stars. I'm just going to leave as like a background darker
colored star. Some stars are going to
get this bright sky blue, dabbed in the middle of them. Now to make some of
the stars really pop, I'm using just a bright white and I'm going to put
a dot right in the middle. I'm not doing it on all of them, I'm just picking a few
stars that I want to be the brightest in the sky. And you can see how those
start to glow really brightly. But we still have
our background stars to add depth to the sky. I might even take
my white and add a few teeny tiny stars
to the sky as well. Another thing I like to do, if you have any yellow on hand, is just pick a star or two that will have a little
bit of a yellow tone to it, and it gives it that golden, glowing feeling to just a
couple of the stars in the sky. Maybe we do a few
background stars with that yellow color. That's the technique. And I'm just going to speed up my camera and work
around the ornament. And fill in the sky
all the way around. Again, it's important
to remember that none of this has to be perfect. It's actually looks better if it's kind of random and we can see the little paint strokes and see that an artist created this. That's really the beauty of
these handmade ornaments is they're not made in a
factory or by a machine, and every single ornament
is going to look different. You can see I once again speared my paint right there and I'm just not even
going to worry about it. I'm going to come back
and plop a little leaf right there and pretend
it never happened, okay, good about my sky. The next step is super fun. We're going to add
our textured berries and we are going to use a technique that is going to make you feel like you
are decorating a cake. We'll let that dry, which really is just a couple minutes, and we will come back
and add the berries.
9. Pipe on the Winter Berries: This is the most fun part of
the project, in my opinion. We are ready to
paint our berries. If you need to practice this on a different surface before
going to your ornament, that is totally fine. Do all the practicing
you need to. It is time to get out
our modeling paste. I feel like we're
always just waiting to get to this part
because it is so much fun. I am using a light
modeling paste, but you could also use a
flexible modeling paste or whatever you might
have available to you. I have a giant tub of it. Please know that you don't need a giant tub
of modeling paste. You can buy these
in teeny tiny jars. I think even as small as
like 4 ounces or 8 ounces. I am just, so I would say, I don't know, a fourth of a
cup here onto my palette. Just scooping it right out of my tub to my modeling paste, I'm going to add red paint. This is a cadmium red hue, but again, any red that you
like will work just fine. This would also look really
pretty if you did like a pink berry or
something like fuchsia. I don't know the
sky is the limit. You can make your berries
any color you choose. I'm adding I guess I would
say that was about a teaspoon of red paint to my
modeling paste. And I'm just using any palette
knife and I'm just mixing around my modeling
paste and my paint. If you are new to
modeling paste, I do have a number of classes that introduce
you to this medium and we'll get you really
comfortable with mixing it with your acrylics and using
it in your projects. We are going to get
out our pastry bag. I've inverted the bag
and I'm just holding the very bottom
part so that I can get my modeling paste close to the bottom so it's not just
all over the bag here. What I'm going to do is just scoop this in there
as if it were frosting. Truly, this is probably the
same process you would use if you were going to decorate
a cake or some cookies, except don't eat this, Inverting the bag, mostly
towards the bottom here. Then I like to tie a
knot in the back of the bag so it doesn't start
squishing up the bath there. Now on this tip here, I am going to, let's see
if we can see this here. I would say you want
an opening that is about an eight to
four of an inch, about the size that
you want, your berry. You're just going to cut
off a tiny bit of that tip. We're going to squeeze
our modeling paste all the way down to the end of, I would try it out like on your palette or a
spare piece of paper, whatever you might
have lying around. Try it out, make sure you like the size that is
going to come out. You're ready to go. When
I make these berries, I actually like to start at the bottom and then move
up towards the top. That's just because I need space to hold onto
this ornament. I'm, I like to place my berries like
at the end of a branch. I squeeze them out and just
make a little berry shape. These are just my little
winter berries and I'm moving on around this ornament, It does take a little trial and error where you're
squeezing it out, making a circle shape,
and finishing it off. Now it's good for these to be random and sometimes
I like to put like a couple close together and then some far apart just
so it doesn't look, you know, so uniform that, you know, they wouldn't really
grow that way in nature. There's not really
a science to this. You're just deciding where
you want your berries, making them a little
bit more dense. At the top, we are pretending we're decorating a
cake here and we are piping on our
little winter berries. I do like to go back
through and if any of them have like a little point
that it seems too pointy, I go back through with my
finger and just kind of flatten the points I feel
good about my berries. Let's hang this up to dry and we will come back tomorrow
and add our leaves.
10. Add the Leaves: Once the berries have
dried completely, it's time to put our
leaves onto the ornament. The leaves are a little more time consuming than the berries, and this technique does
take a bit of practice. Feel free to use a different
surface or just a piece of paper to practice before
you jump onto your ornament. My other tip is to not worry if your leaves
are not perfect. Try to focus on the
overall composition of leaves and the perfection
of each individual one. We, of course, need to get the tub of modeling
paste back out. And I'm going to mix
together two green shades. I like a darker shade and I
also like a lighter shade. One color I really like to use, this is an emerald green. It's a heavy body acrylic
that I'm going to use as the main color for my leaves. To that I have another shade of green that
I guess is a little more of like a dark lime green to tone down that
bright emerald color. Just a little bit. For my lighter leaves, I just have this
asparagus green, I guess I would say more of
a spring muted spring green. Then if it seems too light, I might add in a little bit of the darker shade to
tie the two together. I feel good about
those two shades, but please feel free to
mix greens that you like. This technique to
make the leaves, in my opinion, is a little bit harder than
making the berries. I do recommend that you practice either on your
palette or a piece of paper, wherever you have some
space to do that. We're going to use a palette
knife to make these leaves. I scoop the paint on, but I don't want it like hanging over the
edges like that. I scrape both sides. You can see it's just on the
back of the palette knife. It's not globbing
over or too big. Almost looks like a
little triangle of paint. Then what I do, we'll find a clean spot here
and I'm going to press a little pressure down and pull up towards
the back of the leaf. This might take a
little bit of practice. I do recommend just trying some out on a space that's
not your ornament. I'll show you that
technique one more time. This time you might not have a teeny tiny palette
knife like this. This was actually my
grandfather's palette knife. But say you only
have a larger one that is okay and
that can work too. This is a larger palette
knife with a pointy tip. If I'm using a larger
palette knife, just focus on only putting
paint on the tip of that. You notice I did
the same technique, scooped up the paint, and then I wiped both sides so that it's just
evenly on the palette knife. Then I'll show you
that technique one more time in a
blank area here. Push the palette knife down and then gently release it
at the back of the leaf. We are now going to put
that onto the ornament. Again, you're going to
make so many leaves on here that if they're
not perfect, it is totally fine. I'm going to start by placing
a leaf at the bottom there. I do like to cover up this area where all of the branches
are joining together, Just so it all looks cohesive, like one large plant rather than a bunch of
plants joining together at the bottom now you can
see already I actually like my first leaf far
better than my second leaf. But I'm not going
to scrape it off, I'm not going to start over. I'm just going to let that leaf be and move on to the next one. I'm doing the same technique. I load it on, see
how it's globby. It's like overflowing my
palette knife way too much. I fix that by scraping it
side to side. There you go. Now it's just a nice
little triangle right there on the edge of the pallet knife, a leaf. This is not a quick process. If you start feeling a little fatigued from making
every teeny tiny leaf, feel free to take a break
and come back to it later. I'm going to speed up my camera, otherwise you would watch me make leafs for the next hour. You can see the
process that I do. Okay, we are moving on
to our lighter green. I feel good about the amount
of leaves on my ornament. That process is definitely not quick and it's
definitely not easy, but it looks so beautiful
with all of that texture. When you're finished,
I'm going to hang it up on my pasta rec and let it dry overnight again before we put a coat of varnish
on to seal it up.
11. Varnish Your Ornament and Add a RIbbon: The good news is
the hard part is over once your leaves
have dried completely. The last step on your
ornament is to pick out a pretty ribbon and
apply a coat of varnish. And then that's it.
After this step, your ornament will be
completely finished. I've let my ornament
dry overnight, so all of that textured
acrylic paint quite dry. Now I have two more steps. Before my ornament is finished, I'm going to apply
a coat of varnish. And I'm also going to
switch out this ribbon. This little thin ribbon is just what came
on the ornament. And I'm going to
switch it out for this pretty red velvet ribbon, just to make it a little
more special and fancy. You, of course, can use
whatever ribbon you would like. I just slide it
through the loop. Then I'm going to decide how
big I want the loop to be, where you would put
it on the branch. I like it about,
oh, I don't know, that's like four or 5 "
Enough to slide it over. A pretty significant branch on your Christmas tree
and then I'm going to tie a double knot in that. Nothing fancy here. I'm going to tighten my knot then with the two pieces
coming out the sides, I like to just jazz
them up a little bit by cutting a little V shape, give it a little
finished look like that. I'm going to do the
other side here, eyeball it and make
sure those are even. But again, it's a
handmade ornament. Doesn't have to be
perfectly even. Now my ribbon is attached and it's ready
to hang on the tree. The last step is
just to put a coat of varnish over my paint
to keep it protected. I'm just using a Liquitex
acrylic varnish. This is a matt varnish so
it won't be super shiny. I've just poured a little bit of my varnish in this
plastic container. This little lid that I found
in my recycle bin actually, and I just painted
on with varnish. You want to just do one
quick coat and be done. If you go over the same spot over and
over again as it's drying, the varnish will get
a little bit chunky. You just want to pass
over each area one time. Try to get in all
those little nooks and crannies of your textured
paint. I think that's good. The varnish will dry clear
if you see it pooling just a bit in any of the tiny areas, don't
worry about it. It will still dry
completely clear. We're going to let that varnish dry for about a day
and then this would be ready to gift or ship or just hang it
straight on your tree. Hopefully you love
your new ornament and you've made something
that's truly one of a kind.
12. 12 Ornament FInal Thoughts: You made it. I hope that you have enjoyed creating your
one of a kind ornament. And I hope that this class has inspired you to create more of these ornaments and really got your creative
wheels turning. Just to recap the steps that we did together in this class, we painted the background,
added the branches, painted the glowing stars, piped on the berries like a
cake decorator added leaves, varnished the ornament, and finished it with a fancy ribbon. And now you have your
own hand painted Christmas ornament ready to hang on your tree
or give as a gift. If you enjoyed this process, I encourage you to check out my other three texture
painting classes. Here on Skillshare. Together we paint quick,
tiny texture landscapes, beautiful potted flowers, and
abstract swirling florals, all using that magical modeling. Paste an acrylic paint. Please be sure to leave a review if you
enjoyed this class. I love the feedback
that students give me. Remember that
you'll have to open your browser instead
of the app to do that. I can't wait to see
your project and keep in touch with you here on
skill share or on Instagram. I believe that there
is an artist in everyone and I'm so happy that you came
here to paint today. See you next time. Bye.