Easy Easter Crosses Acrylic Painting Tutorial for Beginners | Step-by-Step

start with a devotional today. So I'm gonna read from Jesus Listens, is the devotional that I'm going to read from today. Um, help me not to grow weary or lose heart when I'm dealing with difficulties that go on and on. It's easy to get so tired that I feel like giving up. Chronic problems tend to wear me out and wear me down. But I realize that if I focus too much on my troubles, I'm in danger of sliding into a black hole of self-pity and despair. Unrelieved physical tiredness can make me vulnerable to emotional exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, losing heart. Thank you for equipping me to transcend my troubles by fixing my eyes on you. I know that you paid a terrible price to be my living Savior. Enduring the cross. When I contemplate your willingness to suffer so much for me, I gain strength to endure my own hardships. I found that worshiping you is a delightful way of renewing my strength. When I take steps of faith by praising you in the midst of adversity, your glorious light shines upon me. I ask that this light may reflect to others as I live close to you, aware of your loving presence. And I rejoice that I'm being transformed into your likeness with ever-increasing glory. In your beautiful name, Jesus. Amen. I love this, um, and I'll share, um, a little bit more as we start painting, um, but I think that's just such a great message today too, to, um, to not get lost in, in the darkness when we're thinking about things that, you know, have been stressful or may continue to be stressful, um, in our lives. It is easy to lose hope, um, and to feel hopeless sometimes, but I have constantly been reminded over the last few weeks dealing with my own struggles that— and being reminded that we are never, ever alone. And he promised that he will never leave us. He loves us so much that he was willing to die on the cross so that we could be saved, so that we could live forever with him. And when you think about that and you think about how big and grand his love is, um, and we are able to do unimaginably more than we could ever do on our own when we put him at the forefront of our lives. And I feel like he's just been reminding me of that lately, to not, um, to not focus on what I can control um, and to not try to control everything, but to go to him constantly and remember that he's got me and he's got you. And a lot of these things that we put on our shoulders were never meant for us to bear. Um, and I just really feel like he's been telling me to slow down a lot, slow down and spend the time with him that I need and spend the time seeking what it is that he wants to use me for, um, and be willing and open to that. So, um, that is just what I've been feeling personally and just wanted to, you know, share that with you guys as well. Um, so I'm gonna start off here. I've got some white and pink, and again, I kind of want this to be very soft and a very calming background. And if you like these tutorials, be sure to share. That is the best compliment you can give me, is to share the videos with others so that they can come and enjoy painting with us too. I'm gonna grab— this is a new DecoArt color. Thank you for sharing, or sprinkling. If you guys hear me say the word sprinkle, that's just another word we use for it. I want a little bit of warmth, so I'm looking at my colors right now. I kind of want more of like a pale yellow. I could take my bright yellow and add white to it, but I'm gonna cheat and just grab— this is like a kind of a buttermilky yellow color. It's called Naples. Yellow. Um, by the way, you can mix thicker bodied acrylic like this and the craft acrylic. You can interchange them in your paintings. Okay, so let's get started. I am taking my largest filbert brush out of my brush set. So this is my number on it is 15. That won't mean anything in any other brand, but it's my It's how we've numbered our brushes. But this is a big filbert, which means it has this curved brush tip here, and I like using this in skies because it creates real soft transitions, and you'll see that as I, as I start painting. So this is going to be a good lesson in blending. Do any of you guys struggle with blending? If so, you'll probably really like this one, because that's what we're going to focus on today. When I'm blending, especially in a sky like this, I tend to use quite a bit of white. So you'll see me kind of bouncing back and forth with that. So I'm going to start actually over here, because this is where I want the hill with the 3 crosses to be. That was just plain white. I'm going to add some of that yellow in there. And so by putting the concentration in the brighter and lighter color over here, it should bring our focus to this side of the painting. And when you're blending, you're just going to keep going back and forth. Just the process of doing this and blending your paint is just so relaxing. And calming too. So I really encourage you, if you're new to painting with me, to just jump in and do it. The more you do it, the better you're going to get. And really just focus on the joy of actually painting. This gift that he gave us to be able to create, he didn't give to anything else. He only gave it to us. This ability to express ourselves and play. And, you know, as a grown-up and as we start having more concerns in life and the stresses of life, it can be easy to get caught up in those. And it's so good for our brains to just slow down, to slow down and paint and kind of get lost in the brushstrokes And you will feel your heart rate slow down. You will feel your breathing slow down, and you will kind of feel the calmness come over you, which I think is the best part of creating. I was talking about that yesterday after a few stressful days. I was painting at the studio, and yes, for a future project, but also just for me. Like, I was okay. If it didn't turn out the way that I was like envisioning it. I just wanted to paint. I just wanted some time with my colors and playing and color mixing and seeing what would happen, experimenting. And it was just so calming. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want to come home. Um, but you know, all of us are crazy busy, right? Like, we all have those things. In life that, um, are time-consuming. I'm a mom of 3, I'm a wife, I'm a business owner. Life is crazy, but, um, it's important for us to slow down and take that time and, and decide when we're taking that time. So I have purposely blocked out time in my day tomorrow and Friday to paint with no expectations on myself, but just to paint, because today is my teaching day, and I want the next 2 days to be— this is my therapy. That's what I want it to be. I need, I need 2 therapy days of painting. Anyone else? Does that sound heavenly to you? Because it does to me. It's just, there's nothing else quite like it. There's nothing else like getting lost in it. But with that said, I know for some of you watching right now, you're probably like, that's great, grand, wonderful for you, Christie, and it's not going to be stressful for you, but it's going to be stressful for me because I don't know what I'm doing, or I haven't painted before. But that's where I want you to just take a deep breath and realize that doesn't matter. You're learning a new skill, and it's not about the end product. It is about the process. It is about the journey. And you hear me say that a lot, but it is so true. If you can just focus on what's happening right now in front of you instead of thinking about what it's going to be like at the end instead of thinking, what are people going to think about this? It will totally change. It will totally change your whole process. It will change the way you feel about it. It'll change the way you go into it because you've taken that pressure off of yourself, that false pressure, that lie that you're being told that it has to look a certain way or it's not good enough? What if you just painted for you and for Jesus and nobody else? Then what would you have to worry about? What would you have to distract you? What if you were able to really soak in and realize that the joy that comes with painting comes— got a little speck here— in learning through mistakes. The only way you're ever going to get better at something is by continuing to do it and willing to make the mistakes in the process and to overcome those. How fun is the sky right now, by the way? Yes, absolutely. Um, Kipperley said, painting makes us be present in the current moment, even when learning, and being present is meditative. Um, and it's so true. I mean, when I say like painting is for therapy, I'm 100%, um, believe that because it does. It slows our brains down. And I feel like, you know, I often have, um, words for the year, and I had a hard time picking one this year. But what I keep coming back to and what I feel like God just keeps telling me again and again is to slow down. So maybe my word for the year is not just one word, it's two. Um, and it makes me think of— did any of you guys, or maybe you still do, collect Precious Moments back in the '80s? My mom loved Precious Moments, collected them, and I'll have to ask her. She's coming for this, um, Easter weekend, but I'll have to ask her where— when she got me this donkey. But Precious Moments made a stuffed donkey, and it was purple, and purple was my favorite color when I was little. And, um, and he had a little, um, you know, gold coil around his neck with a little Precious Moments heart charm on it. And when you opened it up, it said, slow me down, Lord. And, you know, at the time, what, I'm like 5, 6, you know, if that didn't— that didn't have a ton of impact on me at that age. But, um, I think it's funny now, like, when I look back and, you know, like, as I'm like talking to God and, you know, asking for his guidance and his wisdom and things, that's what he keeps saying to me. He's saying, slow me down. Or maybe he's telling me to ask him. Either way, his message is slow down. Um, and sadly, a lot of that has come out of, you know, sometimes I feel like if we're not willing to listen, then God's going to make us listen, and that can mean grabbing our attention through different ways if he needs to. And for me, that was through my health. And, um, I'm living at such a stress level that it is affecting my health, and I'm trying to do too much, and I'm trying to be too many things. Can anybody relate? And what I found is that not only do I need to slow down, but I also I need to trust him. And in order to build my trust with him, I need to spend more time with him. Back to the slowing down. And you know, how often do we say, oh, I'm gonna get— I'm gonna do my devotional, or I'm gonna— I'll pray later, and we go on about our day. And instead of going through our day with Jesus. We go through our day on our own, and we may be like, oh yeah, that'd be great if you could bless this, that'd be great if you could take care of this for me, instead of starting our day with him and remembering that he's with us throughout the entire day. Um, and it's just made me— it really has made me slow down. One, I know I need to for my health started working out more, started just changing, you know, some of my habits because I want to be here a while. I don't, I don't want something to happen to me that because I live so stressed out and put so much pressure on myself all the time that I end up leaving early. I don't want to miss out. So if I don't want to miss out, I got to change some things. So that I'm here for my babies and their babies and so on and so on. Vanessa said, do you know me? I am so doing what you are saying, starting my day off running. Instead of being grounded, something I am working on. It is, you know, it's, it's like everything. I think I have just— I feel like I'm in a very, um, reflective time in my life right now and just making a lot of observations about everything and I think that is just the biggest thing that sticks out to me, is we live in a world that says hurry and do more and be more and think of all you could achieve. And that's not what life is all about. Life is about slowing down and living our moments and being truly present in them, not always thinking about the next thing, and that is super hard for my personality. Um, I don't know if any of you study Enneagrams. If not, you can look that up, but my Enneagram is a 7. Um, and basically the short of that is, um, I am reflective about things, but I love experiences. I love having fun. I love looking forward to the next thing. I love travel. I love doing and going, and I don't want to miss out on anything in life. But a lot of the reason Sevens are like that is because we don't want to think about the things that may not be the happiest, and so we will try to fill our life with those things in hopes that it will fix it, but it won't. The only thing that's going to fix it is taking it to Jesus. And, um, so that's, that's what he's working on through me right now, is yes. Um, someone said we hold stress in our body and it destroys us, and we're not meant to hold it. We were never meant to hold it. We were meant to go to him, and he's waiting every moment of every day. He's just waiting. He already knows what you're thinking, but he's waiting for you to come to him and talk to him just like you would a friend. How fun is this background though? It's just calming just looking at it. Even if you can do nothing else today creatively You can do this, right? How long did that take me? 10, 15 minutes? Of course, I wasn't trying to rush through it. But can you give yourself 10 or 15 minutes today to just put some paint to a page, to a canvas, without worrying about the outcome, and just slow down? Maybe let that be your prayer time. Maybe talk to Jesus while you're painting and just blend. Just pick 3 colors. Some white and just blend and just see how soothing that can be for you. So that is going to be our background. And if we start slowing down and if we start pouring into ourselves we're gonna be so much better for those around us. I think I made my hill bigger than what I wanted to, but we're just gonna go with it. I'm not gonna let that stress me out, and I will tell you this, it's one small thing at a time. It's the next step in front of you. If we look at the big thing, it becomes overwhelming and it shuts us down, right? Because it all just feels like too much. But if we, if we ask God, like, what's the next step? What can I do today that's the next step towards living a more peaceful life instead of a more stressful life? He'll show you what that next step is for you. And you work on one thing at a time. And don't let something like, you know, having the right supplies, or I don't have that color, I don't have what she has to start creating— whatever you have at home, you have markers, you have crayons, you have chalk, it doesn't matter, paint, whatever kind of paint, just start using what you have. Because if you wait until you have all the right things in the right space and that, you know, this and that, you're missing out. You're missing out on the joy that it can bring. So I'm just pulling and loading my brush up. I'm just slowly pulling along that edge. To create a nice smooth hillside. I think what's really been good for me lately too, when I'm doing my journaling or prayer time and devotional, I have started journaling, you know, based on what that devotional on, and then looking up that scripture in the Bible and then reading past that, right? Like reading past the one scripture that that devotional is based on and getting the context of that story. And you can kind of get lost in the Bible, and the more you get lost in the Bible, the the more God is going to talk to you through that. Um, and it's really just fun, uh, to watch what he can do with us when we're— when we are willing to slow down and just listen to him. So, okay, so we've got kind of our sunrise here. Um, I've got a hill. I should have probably made it a little bit smaller and come down here. Um, but I'm gonna go with it. We're going to put 3 crosses on the hill, and then in my original I had kind of like my silhouette, which is just a back of me. So just like a woman's back with hair kind of blowing. I should have given myself a little bit more space for that, but I'm still gonna put me over here. I may just be a little bit smaller, and that's okay. I'm trying to decide what brush I want to use for the crosses. So I'm just going to use my flat out of the set. And I'm just using the skinny side, so I'm just not pushing down very hard right now. And we're going to have the cross that Jesus was on, it's going to be the biggest, and then we'll have 2 more. And these don't have to be perfectly spaced apart, they don't have to be the same size. I think I want to switch to a skinnier brush. Let's go to my number 1 here. So even when you're using a small brush, you can see me continually come back and get more paint on there. Just going to pull. You want to have plenty of paint in your brush, even on the small ones, because if you don't, you won't be able to make the brushstroke. And listen, these do not need to be perfect lines. You think that, that those crosses were perfectly straight? Probably not. They're probably a little rugged, right? See, that brushstroke got a little bigger than what I wanted, but we're just gonna go with it. It's just a happy little accident. I can just come back and make the cross thicker to compensate for that. Oh, thank you, Lisa. Yes, I got new blue on my nails. I haven't done this color before, but it's one of my favorite colors of paint. I thought, why would I not get it on my nails? I love periwinkle. So you can see, sometimes I just change the way I'm holding the brush. Just work with it and see what helps you get those smooth lines. I'm usually always resting my wrist on the canvas. But if you have children or grandchildren, nieces, nephews, daughters, whoever, this would be a great painting to do with them. It's very simple. Any age can do this painting. So be sure to hit the share button. Let's spread this message and this joy. I think that's just pretty the way it is, right? So the next thing I'm going to do is my silhouette. So if you are painting and let's say you've gotten to this point and you're like, oh, I'm really scared to add anything else to it. 'cause I just really like it the way it is right now. You could definitely leave it, but also don't be afraid to practice. Grab your— this is my mixed media pad. You can see me just kind of playing with colors on this page. This is what I mean. I just spent 15 minutes just playing with brushstrokes and colors and blending and layering. It's nothing, but it was fun and it was relaxing. My cake designs for what I'm getting ready to teach in my tribe in about an hour. But this is what a mixed media pad is for. It's for you to practice in, to play in, in. So this is what I'm gonna kind of show you guys, what my silhouette is going to look like. I'm actually watering my black paint down just a little. So I'm going to kind of start, obviously, with— think of if, like, you're looking at the back of someone's head. It's just going to have kind of this curved, right, like an arch. And then when I did mine in the original, it was just kind of like this. So whatever your hair is like— I had long blonde hair at the time, I do again, um, so I made my hair long. If you have short hair, you can make it look like whatever your hair is like, but I kind of had mine kind of blowing off into the wind. And you could put, you know, a little bit of body there if you want to, but when I did mine, it was all silhouette. So mine was just like kind of like that much of me down here in the corner because I felt like if I added too much of the body, you know, if we add like the back shape, it kind of took away from the pretty blowing in the hair. You can switch to a skinnier brush when I do these brush strokes. Kind of hold it this way even so you guys can see. Very light, so it's like nice and wispy hair blowing in the wind. And you could add color to this. It doesn't have to be a silhouette if you don't want it to be, but that is kind of what I'm thinking. That I'm gonna add over here. So I'm gonna get a little bit more black paint. You guys like this one today? Let's see, what brush do I want? I'm gonna start with the number 4 out of my set, which is just a, just a basic size. Round. This is what happens when you leave your brushes in your cup like you're not supposed to do. They get bent at the end. If you haven't gotten my brush guide on how to properly take care of your brushes and how— what to use each paintbrush for, I'll have Lynn throw that link in the comments. And you can grab that, and it's going to be my step-by-step guide of proper care for your brushes, in addition to what each type of brush— what I use it for. So I'm going to tell you the right way to take care of your brushes, not necessarily what I always do. So I'm going to start over here. Let's go a little bit further down. I can always go bigger, right, if I think she's too small. So just starting like a little rainbow over here. So I'm doing quick little motions like that. You can give her— we'll give her a little shape here. I don't think it's going to take away too much. I want to make sure I get some of these wispies. I've gone off the page here, so I want some where you can still see them. What do you guys think? I think this would be really pretty with a verse, or, um, maybe, you know, like a Bible verse or a verse from a Christian song, um, something in the background, maybe one of your favorites. Let me hold on, I'm looking through my devotional. Really quick. This would be a good one to add. This is, um, I'll show you this. I believe we have this in my Amazon store, but if not, I'll be sure to add it in there. But I just started this journal a couple weeks ago and it's just really speaking to me and I really love it. And you write directly into the devotional, so I really like that too. And then I kind of doodle and whatever. Anyways, this one was about being still, um, which I have tattooed on my arm as a reminder. Um, but I was just reading this verse here, um, obviously what my tattoo is based off of, but be still and know that I am God. That's usually like— that's what, um, I have on my wall in my room as well. But if we listen to the whole verse and read the whole verse, 'I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth,' Psalm 46:10, um, that whole verse would be perfect for this painting. But whatever speaks to you. And then something I thought I would do a little bit different on this one that obviously I didn't do on my original when I painted it years ago, but I thought about incorporating just a little bit of contrast with a white paint marker. I'm going to shake this up a little bit more. So whenever you're working with a paint pen, keep the cap on while you're shaking it, but then you want to depress the tip on a scratch paper or somewhere and make sure your paint is flowing. You don't ever want to do that on your canvas. You'll create— like, if you kept pushing down, it would create a pool of paint. So there's actual paint in here, but this is kind of a great one to just add some accents. And then the great thing about this is that if you don't like it, if you start putting it on and you're like, I liked it better with just the silhouette, all you have to do is just grab some black paint. Cover it up. Remember, we're just going to experiment and play. We're just going to see what happens and see what we like. You want to make sure your paint is dry before you add paint pen on here. So I usually just do some scribbles. You can make yours nicer and neater if that's more your style. But you can see how skinny and subtle. Those lines are. Kind of help pull that figure in the bottom corner out a little bit more. All right, let's— this is one of my favorite parts of doing these. When I do tape them down, I love to see the edge when I'm done. Whenever you are peeling tape off the edge, You want to pull down and close. If you just go like this, you're likely going to tear the paper. If you pull down and slowly like this, you're more likely to get nice, crisp, clean lines. And the great thing about— so again, this was painted on bristle paper. You could also do mixed media pad paper, and it's an 11 by 14. So if I wanted to, I could just go grab an 11 by 14 frame and then I could frame this. Let's see, that tore just a little. I touch up— remember, my tape didn't quite cover in that corner. I'm just going to touch it up with a little bit of white. May take a couple coats, so I'm going to let that dry. To tweak that. But I'm really happy with how it turned out. It was, it was a fun painting and kind of time with you guys to share a little bit about Easter. I'm loving how the sky turned out. I like this, like, a little bit of bright yellow right here. This is what I love about painting. You really never know what it's going to turn out like, but I like the yellow and how it kind of softens over here. Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you guys have a blessed rest of the week.