In this 2021 YouTube tutorial, artist Christie Renee Hawkins leads a live finger‑painting session where she creates a trio of abstract, colorful flowers. She walks viewers through every step—preparing a small square canvas, selecting and mixing acrylic colors (purple, mint green, teal, red, black, white, periwinkle), applying paint in wet layers, using finger texture and scribbles, adding shadows, sharpening edges with a brush, and optionally framing the piece with a checkered border. Throughout, Christie emphasizes a playful, non‑perfectionist mindset, encouraging viewers to reconnect with their inner child, reduce stress, and enjoy the messy process. She references her previous finger‑painted sea‑star artwork sold on her Shopify store and positions the demo as part of a larger class focused on creative freedom.
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Hey guys, how's everyone doing? We're gonna do a little finger painting today. Maybe make some crazy little flowers. So let's just sketch. Let's do a couple messy flowers here and a few leaves. Maybe let's do a trio. We'll do a little trio of flowers. I may have to add some paint to this. So we're going to start with just grabbing a little black paint here, and I'm just going to make this a little square, just kind of outline what we're doing here. So if you haven't finger painted before, it's really fun. It's all about embracing that inner child, letting go of that Type A personality, letting go of perfection, and we are just having fun. So I'm just making myself like a mini little square canvas here for these flowers, and then I'm gonna grab some of my purple in here and just start kind of throwing this into our background. I love the, um, texture that you get from finger painting. You can blend a little while things are still wet, and after things are dry, it'll catch a little of those dry spots. But it's just fun to get in there and get messy with it. I'm gonna go in and start on my leaves here that I've got on. I've got some mint green and some pretty teal green we're gonna use. This is just going to be a fun little abstract piece. How many of you finger painted before, not counting when you were a kid? I'm kind of leaning towards— I'm going to get a little mint and a little of my white here. I'm kind of leaning towards the red because it's going to look really pretty against these greens and blacks. You may do this red and some purple. I'm gonna leave that center open. I think I'm gonna make that black. Let's add a little white and periwinkle to this one. It's a pretty little color, don't you think? Just kind of swirling it around. Now this one is all about layers. It may look like it's a hot mess now, but hang tight because we're gonna make it pretty. I think I may grab a little bit of the other green. That I ran out of that I really love mixed with these colors. All right, let's do a little black center here. These are just fun, simple little flowers that we're doing today. All right, while this is drying, I'm I think I want to come and add some background color here. We're going to leave a little bit of black around the edging. Just kind of pulling that paint around. I've done finger painting in several of my paintings. Actually, the starfish one— or a sea star is actually what it's called— that I have up in my Shopify store this week on sale, we did a little finger painting in that one too. So this full class that I'm in the process of teaching— we did our first lesson today— is all about just letting loose and having fun and getting creative, and that's what we're doing here today. I think I may even show you how I add in some scribbles here and the fun texture that scribbles add to your painting. So it's kind of like breaking some rules, traditional rules of painting, and just letting loose and having fun. We've got a little bit more to go here. Let me see, I'm gonna get a little bit more wet paint on here. See those fun scribbles? They show the black coming through. We can do the same thing here, kind of go around our flowers, just digging in to where the paint is still wet, so it's leaving those little bit of grooves. And as that dries and then we come back for more layers, those other layers that we add are going to catch that texture. I need a little bit more of that red. So when you're painting with acrylic paint, you'll notice, like I said, we're doing this in layers because you always want to let the layers dry in between. Let's get a little white in our red, just add a little contrast in there. That glare is a little bad on that wet paper. See how that— can you guys see that? How when I'm finger painting over those lines. You can see a little bit of that line coming through, just adds all that fun texture to the painting. It's just kind of a soft muddled look that I really like. Let's add a little bit more shadow down below. A little darker on this side. What do you guys think? Fun little flowers. And then I'm gonna take just a small brush and I'm gonna go into my black and just kind of sharpen these edges up, add a little black around some each one of the shapes. Just something fun and fast to do, not necessarily something you have to hang or do anything with, but it's just a good exercise for your brain. It's a good way to let loose a little, let go of some stress, and it's just messy. There's no right or wrong. And then if you wanted to, you could straighten up these edges if you did want to frame it. Oh, you know what would be really cute if we did? A little checkered frame around this. What do you guys think? Should we add a little checkered frame? I think that would be cute. Grabbing some of my purple and my black. You know, I love my black and white with my flowers. I like it already, even with just the black around it. All right, I'm gonna grab just a flat brush to do some quick little checked lines around the edges. What do you guys think? You like them? It's kind of fun just going. You never know what you're going to create. It's a wonky little frame we're putting around there. I think I like it. All right, y'all, so don't be afraid to get messy. Get your fingers dirty, scribble a little, get loose and have fun. Bye!
