Being a Seattleite all my life with a fascination for hand blown glass, it’s no surprise that I’m a big fan of Chihuly. I mean, even if you aren’t a lover of this complicated medium that is HAND BLOWN GLASS, how could you not love the genius of Dale Chihuly??? Anyone who has seen his work once will be able to spot more of his work a mile away. He. Is. That. Awesome.
A couple years back, I visited the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum in Seattle. To anyone who will be in the Seattle area or has been thinking about going, my advice is: GO! I highly recommend this museum to all my friends visiting. It is magnificent with a capital M!! Seriously, you won’t regret it.
I know that in my lifetime I will never be able to afford a real Chihuly, but the main takeaway from this museum visit for me was his conceptual sketches. I was enamored with his design process. I kept drinking in all the sketches, studying them, admiring them. It was actually such a simple approach to sketching, yet there was so much life and brilliance behind them. Here are a few examples:
Aren’t they gorg??? See, I wouldn’t lie to you!
Filled with inspiration, I went home with grand ideas of a DIY art project that mimicked the Chihuly design/sketching process. How hard could it be??
Well, pretty hard when you’re stifled by fear. My biggest secret with all my DIYs is that I’m always scared I’ll mess up. I mean, I’ve messed up a lot. I always feel I’ve wasted so much time and money when I fail at a project. And with each new grandiose idea, I get even more scared of screwing up. This is precisely the reason why I don’t get as much done as I want! You should see how long my list of DIY projects is. Just looking at that list scares me!
Big thanks to Michelle at Elegance and Enchantment for starting the Creative Challenge! Without her initiative, I would have continued to put this project on hold while I worked on other, more comfortable projects. Go over to her site to see what I’m talking about! Because of the Creative Challenge, I’ve already tackled watercolor, paper flowers, sewing and calligraphy (the last two which I’ll share with you in a later post). And now, I’ve finally checked this item off of my DIY list!
It. Feels. GREAT!
Supply List
The awesome thing about this is that Chihuly just uses plain acrylic paints for his sketching. There are loads of colors to be found at the dollar store, so this DIY art is as cheap as can be! And he skips the brush altogether. Painting this way is so liberating, I tell you!
• Painter’s canvas drop cloth
• Acrylic craft paints, 3 different colors (primary, secondary, tertiary)
• Latex paint, 1 color, for the background
• Roller brush & paint tray
Step-by-Step
Step 1
Roll out the drop cloth and paint out the background color. I used some leftover interior paint I had from the tool closet project. Just slapped the color on. Didn’t bother to get all the canvas covered. Kinda makes it look really artsy, doesn’t it? The size of my painting measures 33″ x 72″ to fit a specific wall in my house, but you can certainly make this any size you want. Even a small 8×10 would look really nice! Oh! And I also used an old drop cloth. The back of it was all marked up from previous projects, but the other side was pretty clean, so saved me some money there!
Step 2
Letting the background color dry is not necessary, if you don’t mind stepping in wet paint (which is inevitable if you are doing a big painting). Check out this Instagram photo of my messy painting skills! Anyway, moving on… Decide which craft paint is the primary color (mine was yellow). Squirt the paint directly from the bottle back and forth/left to right, creating a sort of tornado shape.
Step 3
Next, decide which craft paint is your secondary color (mine was white). Again, squeezing the paint directly from the bottle, cover the yellow with large squiggles (counter clockwise worked for me) and work all the way down the tornado shape.
Step 4
Using your tertiary color (mine was pink), squeeze drops at random around the painting. It’s OK if you go off the main shape, but I tried to keep my drops and splats within the main shape so the pink looked like accent colors of the chandelier. (Yes, this is my interpretation of a chandelier, hahaha.)
Step 5
If you’re working with a large painting, you’ve likely used up the primary and secondary paint colors, which would leave you with empty bottles. Pick up these bottles again and just squirt any remaining paint around the chandelier to create a splatter effect. (Secretly chuckle at the farting sounds the empty bottles make because you’re immature like that.) I think this is the part that really makes the painting come to life!
Here I am in action, in case you didn’t believe your eyes about how to paint:
Sorry for the blurry quality, but you get the gist! This is seriously how Mr. Chihuly sketches. Isn’t it wonderful??
Gonna throw a helpful tip at cha: It’s good to stretch out the corners of the drop cloth to smooth out the wrinkles and creases. I anchored the corners with full/semi-full cans of paints.
Details of the splattering.
Ahhhh…. art.
The beautiful thing about this piece is that you can’t make any mistakes! I accidentally unscrewed the cap of the bottle (instead of flipping the top) and dropped a streak of white paint in the center, but it was quickly covered during the artistic process. Now that streak is unnoticeable!
Do you think you could tackle this painting? If you love you some Chihuly and think this DIY art is right up your alley, holler in the comments below!
PROJECT SUMMARY:
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Total Cost: I used an old drop cloth, so that was free. But if you need to buy your own, they run about $10-30 depending on the size. You can also use pre-stretched canvases. Acrylic craft paints were $1.25 each at Dollar Tree (plus tax). Latex paint was left over from another project. Grand total for me was $4.20! (What a savings from a real Chihuly!)
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Total Time: 20-25 minutes, y’all!! (10 minutes to set up the drop cloth and paint the background. 10-15 minutes to paint the chandelier.)
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