Get Confidence With Using Color Words by Penny Swift & Pictures by Janek Szymanowski © We show you how to get confidence with using color. Color is an enormously powerful medium and a major consideration in modern home decorating. It is also an emotive and intensely personal subject – especially when it comes to
All About Treasure Trove Display Boxes Treasure Trove Display Boxes Display treasure trove boxes are useful and appealing. If you have a prize collection of trinkets or memorabilia hidden away in the back of a drawer or cupboard, now is just the time to sort it out and set it into a pleasing and
Decorate With Painted Tin Cans Don’t throw those old tin cans away, recycle them and make painted tin cans and use them to decorate with. Handy containers in which you can store items such as kitchen utensils, make-up brushes, or pencils can be decorated to match your kitchen china, soft furnishings or wallpaper. Instead
Traditional Barge Painting OK, so to do some Barge Painting you do not have to own a barge. For over a century, the inland waterways of Britain and Europe have literally sparkled with the brilliant colors and distinctive designs, which are painted on all the narrowboats and long boats moored along the water’s edge.
How To Do Wood Staining We show you here how to do wood staining the easy way. Stained timber is a way of changing the wood’s color without sacrificing the character of the grain and knots. This can be done discreetly using wood tones to improve the natural shade or imitate a more expensive
How to Do Leaf Printing We show you how to do leaf printing so you can avoid spending a fortune on all those expensive hand-printed papers. Why not have a go at making your own? Turn to nature to find an attractive motif and cover sheets of plain brown paper in a riot of
Stencil Flowerpots – How To Make One Plain terracotta pots have a charm of their own but stenciled, each pot becomes an original item. Choose a new terracotta pot with smooth sides that has been water treated giving an unblemished, clean and even surface. There is a wide range of paint sample pots and
How To Stencil – Get Started This is how to stencil the easy way. For your first attempt at stenciling, choose a project that is small and unlikely to cause grief if it doesn’t turn out well, but will be attractive enough to show off if it does; a little tray would be an
How To Decorate With BOLD Color Unless you are naturally daring with colors and willing to try decorating with bold color, it’s tempting to play safe by using white and pale tints as the basis of your home decorations. Such pastel and neutral shades are certainly comfortable to live with but, without some bright
Mural Art – Bringing Art Home Story by Penny Swift & Pictures by Janek Szymanowski © Mural art and the living use of color have been decorative features of architecture for many centuries, projecting both cultural traditions and man’s yearning for fantasy. The History of Wall Paintings Wall paintings and various types of mural
How to Paint With Watercolor The step-by-steps on this page show the typical stages in the development of a watercolor landscape. For the landscape shown here the artist used a17- by 22-inch sheet of French hand-made, cold-pressed, 300-pound watercolor paper which, because of its thickness, required no stretching. To introduce a variety of brushstrokes, he
Color and Design Understanding color White light is made up of light of different colors. Anyone who has seen a rainbow has seen white light divided into its component colors, the colors of the spectrum. See the color wheel below. The red petals of a rose look red to us because they absorb all wavelengths
A Selection of the Best Oil Painting Books Available The Complete Oil Painter: The Essential Reference for Beginners to Professionals Oils are perhaps the most versatile of all paint mediums. Yet for many artists oil painting is either shrouded in mystique or considered very difficult. Filled with clear, step-by-step instructions and surefire strategies, The
A Selection of the Best Glass Painting Books Available Gorgeous Glass – 20 Sparkling Ideas for Painting on Glass and China When you think of glass painting you may think of the cutesy or funky level of decorative painting, but as manufacturers have developed better glass paints, artists are now able to refine the art
