Spoonful of Imagination

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Beauty in the Unexpected

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Isn’t it fun when something unplanned catches your eye? I think there is beauty in the unexpected.

The other week I showed you how I made these messy painted journals. I began by showing you how I made their covers, but I ended up filling them up with color too. The goal was to fill the pages with color and inspiring pops of playful abstract paint strokes. What I did not expect was the papers that I used to insert between my journal pages to become their own beautiful canvas. These papers were intended to simply catch the paint that rolled off the current page I was painting. I wanted them to catch paint from oozing below and hurting past pages I had painted.

The papers dried as the pages dried. I then moved them up and inserted them in between new pages, as I kept filling my journal with color. What happened in the process was layers and layers of paint filling up and creating fun abstract mini paintings.

I started to love the pages. All of a sudden I didn’t want them to get ruined, and I contemplated stopping to use them and get new papers, so I didn’t “mess them up.”

I forced myself to keep going and remain free in their creation as well, because ultimately I had no need or plan for them. I should just enjoy the process with them as well.By the time I finished my journals, I had this stack of papers that I found so beautiful and loved as much as the journals. I cut them up into smaller sections and planned to use them as cards or bookmarks.

I couldn’t leave it there though. I got the idea to add more texture and fun to create some really fun, messy, painted, rainbow greeting cards.

I started following some of the trails of paint by ripping the edge to create a rough textured finish. I loved this look because the white contrasts with all that color so beautifully. Once I had a stack of now ripped mini abstract paintings, I picked a blank, colorful greeting card and sewed my painting to it. The result was a fun, textured, colorful, messy (yet finished) greeting card. What do you think? Do you love them as much as I do?

I think one of the things I love about them is just that they came out of nothing. There was no idea or plan. They just unfolded as I created and enjoyed the art process.

When is a time you found beauty in an unexpected way? Enjoy the process! We never know what may come out of it!

DIY Painted Journals

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Do you ever find yourself needing just a safe, inexpensive way to play?

With everything going on in the world right now, it can be hard to go places. We can create fun at home by creating in our home.

This past week, I found myself analyzing the fall, plans, what to do, how to move forward and it was all real heavy when you mix in COVID-19. I bought some notebooks and just started painting for no reason other than I needed too. It was a safe place for me to play, experiment and enjoy the creative process.

“The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before.” -Neil Gaiman

With back to school shopping happening, composition notebooks are only about $0.50 each right now. What a cheap canvas! I bought eight notebooks, gave them a quick spray paint to have a blank canvas and got started just brushing them with big bold strokes of  acrylic paint.

I played with colors mixing, making subtle blends, and big bold blends. It was so fun and satisfying to squirt paint directly onto the notebook and to just start brushing and watching that paint move. I played with directions, pressure of the brush, and the amount of paint. It was therapeutic to play with colors I love and stretch myself with new colors.

I loved having eight notebooks to do at once. It allowed me to keep going and not having to wait long periods for a base coat to dry before I painted more. Once all eight of my first coats on the journals dried, I came back and added some more concrete brush strokes on top of my abstract blends.

I loved picking contrasting colors and create movement that went against the other brush strokes. The final step was stamping some circles and squirting some runny paint on top. The mix of all these colors, layers, and different techniques blended together to create some fun abstract notebook covers.

What do you think? Will you pick up some composition notebooks next time you are at the store? I had so much fun creating these covers that now I am continuing on in them! I love art journaling and after leading some art journaling workshops at the beginning of quarantine, I realized one of my favorite parts of journaling is creating base coats like these.

Doodles, words, collages, poems, paintings, and special notes look amazing on top, but they are also pretty fun just like this!

Have you art journaled? If you haven’t, you may just love it. It is one of my favorite ways to rest and process the world around me!

Do you have a student a little nervous to walk back into a new school year? Maybe painting their notebooks for school might help in the excitement and also open up an opportunity for you to talk and process it all together.

I hope you can find sometime for YOU to create, breath and rest, as you also process the world around you! We are in this together! If you try these paint techniques on some inexpensive notebooks, I would love to see them! Please find me on social media!

Instagram: @ericadeuel

Facebook: @spoonfulofimagination

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DIY Wood Painted Tray

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This project has so many of my favorite components. I love color, paint, process art, functionality, and several steps for a project and this fun project incorporates all of that.

It’s not too difficult and a few steps can really set up kids or you for a fun project that (I believe) you would then enjoy the finished product for years. Embrace the process being the art and enjoy it with this project.

I will quickly show you the main steps I did in this project with campers at our studio. My purpose is to inspire you to embrace color and to maybe try parts of this project to make it your own. You can change the measurements, techniques and tips to create a fun piece that works for you!

1. Build

As I was dreaming up this project for my campers, I used a mix of donated wood and bought supplies to create a basic tray. I started by trimming plywood pieces with my Miter Saw and Brad Nailer to create small wood tray. The frame for my tray was approximately 13″ x 8.5″.

2. Sand and Prime

I wanted my campers to focus on the wood squares that went IN their tray, so I prepped the tray a bit more for them. I sanded the trays and primed them white, so my artists could spend more time enjoying painting the wood squares.

3. Paint squares & Tray

I built my wood trays to be able to hold (6) 4″ x 4″ wood squares. You can build your tray to hold whatever size tray you want. Or you can skip adding the wood squares and just paint the bottom of your tray any of these fun ways.

I pulled out a mix of different materials to allow my campers to paint their squares in an abstract, fun way. In this step, we focused on the process of creating, experimenting, playing, observing, pivoting to enjoy painting without a paintbrush.

The techniques we encouraged were:

  1. Painting with pipettes and watered-down paint. You can read a post all about this technique here. This technique creates a marbled-paint pour that is a super fun look.
  2. Scrape painting with an old giftcard or hotel key. In this technique, you move the paint around with the key and the focus is on play. Depending on how hard or light you press the key down you can blend colors and show movement with creating ripples.
  3. Fun tools like feathers, forks, cooking basters, and tooth picks all can add fun stamping or blending in paint. You can’t fully control your image with these tools, which forces you to play and discover.

I planed to allow my campers to use a paintbrush to paint their wood trays, after they painted their wood squares.

I imagined the squares fun and abstract and then the tray being where they could practice “controlling” their finished product a little bit more.

I was so surprised (and excited!) to see that the campers had so much fun exploring the fun tools and paint techniques that most of them choose to paint their tray in the same way!

4. Dry and Spray Sealer

After everything was painted, we let it dry overnight. Because of the thick layer of paint, it took longer to dry. Once everything was dry, I used Rustoleum’s Clear Gloss spray to completely cover the art. This sealed their masterpieces, added a protective layer, and helped some of those blended colors pop a bit more.

5. Final details- Glue squares and add handles

It was fun to encourage the artists to play designer on how they would like their squares to lay in their wood tray. Once they figured out the order they wanted them to go in, they used wood glue to put the squares in place inside the wood tray.

They were gorgeous! I added the handles to complete the trays and were ready to be taken home and stylized!

Each tray turned out so different, yet beautiful and colorful. I love the mix of color, wood, and metal handles.

The squares allow the wood tray to have fun different colors all mixed together. Any one of the wood squares might not be loved if taken out and used on its own. Yet, when the wood squares are paired together with other fun squares they look stunning and make one another even more fun.

I love how I had some ideas for the main parts/steps of this project, but it was open ended enough that the campers could play and personalize it to their own taste. I never mentioned splatter painting, yet the girls did play with that technique.

It always amazes me what the campers come up with, when given freedom to play. I learn from watching them. One camper painted a wood square and then used it as a stamp and stuck another square to it. When she pulled the squares apart the most stunning abstract design was the result. You can see this technique in the above picture on the bottom right tray.

You can try the fun techniques on paper.

You can buy a wood tray and add to it.

You can find other random things to paint with from around your house.

There are so many ways to personalize this project or the paint techniques to make something fun today!

What do you think!?! Do you want to make a fun, functional painted piece now!?! Imagine the possibilities. How can you add some color to your world today?