DIY Floral Painted Frame | Easy Beginner Acrylic Painting Tutorial

Hope everyone is doing good today. It's Christie with The Social Easel, and we are going to do a quick Facebook Live. I'm going to show you how to take a simple little frame like this and turn it into something pretty cute. We're going to do a whitewash on this and do some simple flowers around the edges. So when you put your picture on there, you've got a cute little frame around it. Um, so I got this frame at Michaels. This is just an 8x8. I thought it was super cute. I thought we could do something cute with it. I'm always looking for little fun ideas in the store that I can paint something on. So I'm using DecoArt paint today, and I don't know if I'm going to use all these colors, but I'm just going to set them out for you. A couple greens and then a couple pinks, and I love periwinkle, so I think I may do this one too. But I'm thinking I want to do like a whitewash on the frame and then paint some little flowers around it. So something simple, we don't want it to distract too much from whatever picture that you're going to put on your frame. So these are the craft paints, we've got round brushes, I've got a couple thicker bigger ones that I'm just going to use to do the wash with, and then I have black and white Posca pens. That I'm probably going to use for accents. So I'm going to cheat and just paint that. Actually, you know what, I'm going to show you something. I want to put dark on here first because I want it to— I want that to show through a little bit. Okay, so this is just kind of like a light kind of mocha brown color. It's called Mississippi Mud. So the reason I'm putting this on first is to give us a darker base coat, and then when I put the whitewash over top of it, a little bit of this color is going to show through. I didn't want it super, super dark. Um, Jean said, what did tribe do this morning? I missed it. Let me show you. This is what tribe did this morning. This is my newest animal painting, my donkey. I named her Bella. So that's what we did inside my tribe this morning. If you're new and you're curious what that is, That is my VIP membership, and they get taught 3 different paintings per month with me inside a private group. And we did a donkey today, we're doing a desert scene next week, and then the long-awaited horse that so many ladies have been waiting on for years. We're finally doing a horse this month. I'm in my animal mode. I'm just going to be careful around this metal part. One thing I love about painting on wood— have you guys painted on wood before? Let me know in the comments. One thing I actually love about it, um, is that it dries fast. The wood absorbs the paint really quickly, quicker than canvas does, so you don't have to wait as long in between your steps. Um, Sue said, I haven't painted on wood. I'm sorry, this camera is shaking. I don't know why. Maybe because I just shook the table. Um, I just got some wood to paint on. Should you gesso wood so it doesn't absorb so much paint? I never do, never have. So it's up to you. If you want it to be super, super solid, you might want to. I just love the look that painting on wood gives just in its natural state. So this is just a 1-inch— I don't even know where I got this, maybe an art store, maybe Walmart. It's just a very basic 1-inch flat brush, more of like crafting. That I'm going to get some white paint on, but I'm drying it first because I want to do kind of a dry brush effect for the frame. Kellen said, I'm all about the rustic look. I am too, I love it. So a lot of my house is kind of like modern farmhouse, I think is what you call it. So I have a lot of that kind of look in my house, which obviously is what I'm doing this frame for. These are the colors I have in my, in my home. And in case you missed it, if you— I don't know if you follow home interior trends or home decor trends, whatever you want to call it, but, um, periwinkle— it's not straight periwinkle, not exactly this color, but a shade of this is actually the Pantone color of the year. So it's going to be used in a lot of design and a lot of art. It's going to end up being in the home So this periwinkle blue color is going to be very on trend, and then also these really soft muted greens. So I chose those colors for this, and you guys know I love some bold bright colors, but I also love this soft muted look when it comes to like inside my home. My office is crazy and it's all the bright things. The rest of my home is very calm, um, and then just these really subtle pinks as well. Okay, so see how I'm getting the paint in my brush, but then I'm kind of like brushing it on the palette, and we're just going to quickly go over this. Not a ton of paint. I'm not pushing down hard. I don't want it to fill the whole thing in. Now apparently I still had some wet brown that seeped on my side, so it's pulling in that little bit of color, but I'm fine with that. I think it just adds to it. Kimberly said her bedroom is periwinkle. I'm so happy to hear that. My bedroom was periwinkle when I was in college, and I thought it was the the best bedroom in the world. It's still one of my favorite colors. I've started using it a lot more in my paintings too. It's starting to become one of those go-to paint colors for me. Um, Sue said, does it matter whether you use craft paint or artist grade paint on wood? I would actually recommend craft paint. I don't usually use the artist grade paint on wood. So what I'll probably do, because you can see this panel pulled in some of that brown a little bit, I'll probably let that dry and go back over that with a little bit more white. While we're talking flowers, let me know What are some of your favorite flowers, and what would you like to learn how to paint? What types of flowers would you like to learn how to paint? Because y'all know I love all flowers. I love painting flowers. I think it's starting to look pretty cute. You know, I said I was going to paint that over, but I kind of like those little sections of like that khaki color in there. Now if you do get anything on your metal and you didn't mean to You can just get like an alcohol wipe or a baby wipe and get that off. I'm loving the little rustic edges on this. I need just a little bit more white. Martha said hydrangeas. Hey Martha, if you missed last week, I actually taught some watercolor hydrangeas last week. You guys can go back and watch here on my Facebook page, or you can— actually, I don't think it's up on my YouTube channel yet. Disregard that. You can go back to my videos here on my Facebook page and catch that replay if you haven't already. Chris said, Dutch girl here, irises and tulips. I love both. Tulips and irises are two of my— tulips, irises, and poppies. Those are probably my 3 favorite flowers. I got to take my mom over to Europe a few years ago, and we got to go to Holland and see the windmills and the tulips, and we got to go to Monet's house and see his garden. And it was— we got— we went in late April, and we got to see so many pretty tulips. When we were in Amsterdam. It was just a beautiful time of year to go there. I still have pictures from that trip that I can paint with you guys too. Someone said dahlias. Also love dahlias. I'm looking at, um, we have a new piece of land, um, that we bought last year, so this is our first year to like really do anything with it. So We're looking at planting fields of wildflowers, which I'm really excited about, but I now like just, you know, have this gigantic pasture that I can grow all these flowers in. So my dream is to actually have my own version of Monet's garden someday. And we were looking at dahlias and all the bulbs. It's my favorite time of year to go to Walmart and Lowe's and Sam's and see all the new bulbs that are out. Dahlias are so pretty and there's so many different kinds. Peonies are pretty. Yes, I agree. Again, if you weren't on at the beginning of this, I got this at Michael's and I think it was only like a dollar or $2. Um, it came with a little stick, so if you wanted to set it up on a shelf— I literally feel like some ghost just came in here and took it. I just took it out of the package before I went live and it was right here on the table and now I don't know what happened to it. So, you know, I'll find it eventually. But it does come with a little thing you can set it up, or you could put a magnet on the back of it and put a cute little frame on your fridge. Or you could just, um, you could even put like a little holder thing on the back if you want to hang it on the wall. Becky says wildflowers of any kind. Let me show you what I was playing with today. So, you know, I'm really big about you guys playing in your mixed media pads because this is where you get to play and you can just test out different flowers. And I was just doing fun, just different little techniques and flowers. This was with watercolor, just kind of playing with some ideas of all the different ones that I like to do. So we can do some fun things like this, um, along the edges today, um, or we can do my simple little Christie flowers that I love. And when you guys are looking for inspiration, obviously you can use photos, um, but I try to encourage you to look for inspiration everywhere. I love Natural Life, if you haven't heard of that brand. Not their clothes, so much. But like, look at these cute cups and mugs. And, um, Linda on my team got me a blanket from them. Look, this is the blanket she got me. It's absolutely gorgeous. I love it. And I love all their different types of flowers on here. So I always keep magazines like this around for inspiration. Like, how cute is that? So many good ideas in here and different types of flowers that you can just kind of look at and kind of figure out what, what style, what color. And this is what I love about it— there's no right or wrong. You can have a turquoise flower if you want to. So anyways, that's what I kind of have out here. And I love my blanket, love my blanket that she got me. And I'm always thinking about that for inspiration and stuff too. So you can do a couple things. You can just kind of freehand it and just kind of paint wherever you want, or if you want to take a pencil and do like a little bit of a sketch first so you kind of have an idea of what it's going to look like. I'm kind of thinking I want it to kind of climb up the sides. The magazine was called Natural Life, is the company's name. But you can just do fun little, fun little flowers. Around the border. I know you guys can't see this, it's not showing up, but I'm kind of doing this for myself so that I have an idea, and then I'll be able to show you maybe. So right now I'm thinking doing maybe these curved, this maybe one up here, one kind of going down on both sides. I think that might be pretty cute. Then we can just start filling in with some flowers. I just love these to kind of give it like a little bit of a frame look. Let's start with that. We'll start with our green, and we're just going to kind of play with it and see what happens. Sharita said, I love that rug. Or is it painted floor cloth? I'm not sure. There was a blanket, there was a, um, it was a shower curtain. That may have been the one you were talking about. Pauline said, I have so many inspirations, I need to stop looking. I hear you, I do that too. So I'm just getting a small round right now, and I'm just going to kind of do these little delicate skinny lines. I may need to zoom in for you guys. Is that better? How's that? Good. And these do not need to be exact. Don't let perfectionism stop you from painting. The more loose and free it is the more— number one, you're going to enjoy it, and it's going to look better because it's not forced. And we don't want art to be perfect. So then I'm going to have these kind of go down See how I'm just kind of using the shape of the brush, and mine's not even in the best condition, to make those leaves. And I'm not worried about my pencil marks. I can always go back and erase those later. So I think I'm gonna start there. And then what do we want to do? Oh, another one I like to do— I think I might want a Posca pen for this. I've decided I wanted a lot of Posca pens. See how quickly I changed my mind from my soft color palette? I just have to bring these other colors in. So Posca pens are awesome. If you don't have them, you can go to my Amazon shop and I have that pack in there. It's a multi-pack and it has all these colors and it's just a really good variety pack that you'll be able to have them to use for multiple paintings. But, um, over the last year I started using these mixed in with my painting and it just adds another fun element to it. So like, this is like an olive green one that you can do some like finer lines with or little accent marks. You don't want to be like me and drag it through wet paint, but I was also thinking I might want like a couple little sprigs coming out of here. That we just put some cute little flowers on. And then let's get some of my paint colors here. So I'm just getting little dots of paint because number one, this is a small little canvas that we're using, surface. We're just gonna, we're just gonna play and paint some, some different little flowers here. So some of my favorite ones They're what I call my Christie flowers, are really, really simple. We're just going to come in and just kind of mush our brush down, down and around to make somewhat circular shapes. Now I'm trying to not overthink where I'm putting these and just randomly placing them down. Now I'm going to grab some of that blush pink that is really more like a coral to me, and we're just gonna add these little dots. And what I like about paintings like this is you can just keep filling it in and keep playing with it. Maybe do some of those more like tulip shapes, you know, like whimsical tulip shapes, not really realistic, but basically you're coming in and making like a heart. That one needs to be a little bit bigger like that. Okay, so think like a wide heart and then another little section in the middle. And these, again, we're not trying to make these perfect shapes or anything. We want a little wonky, we want a little fun, but don't just think we're stopping here with these blobs. We're going to be adding some more detail to it, so don't give up yet. I used Blush Pink and Vintage Pink. Now I think I want to do some Periwinkle. Maybe overlap this a little. What do you guys think? Maybe like a little pale yellow dot on the inside of that one. This is where those Posca pens are really going to come in handy with some of our detail work on here. Look at that wonky flower, but that's okay, we're gonna fix it. And like I said, there are so many ways you could do this, totally not in this style, something completely your own. Let's take some of that paler green. And look what, like, little paint that you use. Even the dots that I put on there, I'm not even using all of that. Let's add a couple little leaves here and there, maybe a stem. For our little tulip shapes. And then I'm going to take some of that dark and go right over top of it again while it's still wet, just to add a little bit of contrast in there. So this is all about being light with your hand, not pushing down too hard. Looking pretty cute. I think I want to add— oh, I'm going to flip this over. I think I want to add a couple just to pull the periwinkle in a little bit more. I'm going to add a couple little dots. I use the back of my brush so you get perfect little dots, and you don't have to worry about pushing your brush down too hard and the bristles kind of fanning out on you. And again, I'm not thinking about it. When you do this, I don't want you comparing one side to the other and painstakingly trying to figure out if you have the right amount of dots on there. Just start putting them down. Okay, I'm going to let this dry just a little bit. I'm going to grab— I was going to add yellow in there, but I'm not ready yet. We're going to put some white in the center of some of these. I'm going back to my blanket page just so I can look at some of their cute little flowers. So this is the kind of detail work I'm talking about that we can do with Posca pens, all these extra little lines and dots and fun stuff that they put inside the flowers. Those are just fun to add, and doing it with a Posca pen makes it a little bit easier. This is just a white Posca. Now here's something too I want to show you. Let's say you do that and you're like, oh no, I don't like it, I liked it better before, and I wish I wouldn't have done that. These are paint pens, so you can smooth it back out. You could come back and add your pink right over it again, and it's just fine. So that white is just going to kind of blend in with that other paint that you've got on there. I actually kind of like that look. I'm trying to decide if I want white in the middle of these or yellow. Maybe I'll do white and yellow. I like the yellow in there. Now it's really easy to make little dots with your Posca pen too. It's a fun little color. So if I ever get quiet, it's just because I'm concentrating. Just kind of playing with the design. I think it's starting to look so cute. Of course, you know, I had to add a little bit of bright color to it, but I'm liking it. Um, these are just— I think they're just medium tip. It says 1.8 to 2.5 millimeter. Yeah, I love that green. I love that teal and the periwinkle too. I'm trying to think if I want to add anything else or if I'm ready to call it done. Maybe some of these little guys. Mm, I could leave those off. So let's grab a picture. Let me see if I can find one to snap on here and see what— see what it looks like all done. I'm sure the girls will hate that I chose this one, but that's okay. They don't have to know. I always liked them tilted a little bit. I think it looks pretty cute. So we've got ourselves a cute little wildflower frame. Again, I got that one at Michael's. I'm sure you can find this kind of stuff at any store, even the dollar store. Let me show you some of the little other dollar finds. These are going to be a Facebook Live for another day. I did get these at Dollar Tree, so these are metal clip frames that I think we can do something cute with. And then I got this awesome little guy in the Target dollar section. It was $3 though, so just always keep your eye out for those little things because you can paint on them just like you would a canvas. We don't have to just paint on canvas. All right, I hope you guys had fun. And then again, if you came on late and you're not signed up for this yet, this starts tomorrow. This is your last chance to sign up. It's only $20 to be a part of this paint party. This is our Spread Love Like Wildflowers, and it's $20. It's a 2-day painting event in a private Facebook group, and 25% of the proceeds go to our Honduras missions trip that is at the end of this month. So you guys have been an awesome support for that, and we're so excited, and we are gonna share all the love that we give out there with you guys and some updates when we get home from the trip as well. So love for you to come and join me in this group and come paint with me for a good cause, and, um, we will see you later. Bye, have a good night!