Painting A Christmas - DOORS ARE OPEN! || The Social Easel
In this 6,750‑token livestream, Christie Renee Hawkins guides viewers through painting a small Christmas‑tree ornament, demonstrating step‑by‑step techniques, brush handling, color mixing, and design choices while interacting with a live chat of community members. Interwoven throughout the tutorial, she promotes her Inner Tribe painting membership, explaining its limited‑time early‑bird bonuses (Bird's Nest, Abstract Flowers, Cactus Trio), pricing ($47/month or $470/year), and the benefits of a private Facebook group, monthly new paintings, guest artist sessions, business coaching, and commercial rights for members. She answers audience questions about canvas types, brush selections, and supplies, shares personal anecdotes about community members’ successes (e.g., paint‑party businesses, first sales), and runs a contest encouraging viewers to share the video for a chance to win the finished ornament. The livestream also previews upcoming projects (farmhouse sign, fall birch trees) and highlights the value of templates, detailed brush sets, and affordable art supplies. Overall, the content blends instructional art instruction with community building, membership marketing, and audience engagement.
Chapters
We are going to paint a Christmas tree ornament today. I'm gonna show you how to do this little guy, and it's from my original Christmas tree painting that I did 6 years ago when I started my business. So I just thought you guys might like to do one of these, a little early Christmas bonus, and I'm gonna answer some questions for you about my Inner Tribe membership because it's now open, and we opened last night and we had an awesome live paint party. If you missed that, you can go back and watch it, so it's not too late. You can just go to my videos tab and you'll see the video there. So if you want to paint Autumn Road, I think I already put it— I already put it away, but if you want to paint Autumn Road, you can go back and do that. And if you want to learn how to paint a cute little Christmas tree today, That's what we're gonna do, and I think what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna talk to you guys for just a second. Let me know you can hear everything okay, looks okay. Hey Pam. Hey Elaine, and I'm getting ready to pull you up here and get this going. Okay, so now I'm gonna pull you up so I can— I'm not straining so much. But what— here's what I was thinking about doing. I want to answer a couple questions for you guys. Show you a few of the early bird specials, and then I'm gonna flip the camera around because this is such a tiny little thing and I really want you to be able to see what I'm doing so it's easier for you. Does that make sense? So does anyone have any questions for me really quick before we get started? Hey, Luanne! If not, I'm just gonna give you a brief overview of what the Inner Tribe is if you haven't heard me talk about it yet, but this is my painting membership, I only open it 2 times a year and it's open right now. We opened last night. Early birds are still going on today until 8:00 PM. So what that means is if you sign up for the Intertribe membership before 8:00 PM Central Standard Time today, you're going to get 3 bonus tutorials. And I have those paintings right here so I can show them to you. So you're going to get the Bird's Nest painting, my Abstract Flowers, which is one of my favorites. And you actually get, not only just the painting tutorial for this, but this comes with a little bonus video that gives you up close and personal view of doing the techniques first, and then you also have the full tutorial for that. And then you get our Cactus Trio, which this one is super cute. So those are your 3 bonuses, and those are valued at over $90 total. But the Inner Tribe membership is basically like if you like painting with me, but you kind of want to take it a step further and you want to learn some specific paintings. That's what this membership is, along with a group of women that are phenomenal. So my Inner Tribe right now, we have over 300 women, which is just crazy. We've grown so much and I'm so excited. But this is an awesome community of women that I get to teach, and then they end up teaching each other because there's so much inspiration going on inside of that group. So that's our private Facebook group where I do all my paintings with them. So you get 3 new paintings with me each month, and then the 4th week of the month you get either a guest artist like Casey Hope, who I was with earlier today, who teaches hand lettering, or maybe someone who does watercolor door hangers. It's different every month, or you get a business coach. So all of that is included for only $47 a month. Um, or you can do the annual plan for $470 a year. So that is just your monthly content. So let's talk about what you get when you sign up. Um, you get instant access to my entire video library. And what that means is that is over 45 full tutorials of my paintings. So everything you've seen me paint pretty much over the last few months, um, we've got like the truck full of pumpkins, the rooster, the pig, the cow, all that stuff, the witch's boots. Um, what do we have coming up tomorrow? Thursday we'll be doing our first live with all of our new members, and we're doing the fall birch trees. But that video library has over a year and a half worth of content, um, since my membership has been open. So you get immediate access to all of that, um, in addition to live Q&As, technique videos, templates that you can draw onto your canvases so you're not having to freehand them. Um, if you want to sell your artwork, like if you want to have an Etsy store or sell it in craft booths or, um, just sell to friends and family even, um, or if you teach paint parties, when you join the Inner Tribe, you have my permission and my rights to use these paintings to sell them. So you're not required to change them up. This is to help you out so you can start making some money. At doing art. So you have full rights to do that. The only stipulation is that you can't teach it online. So if you want to start hosting paint parties and making some money, which a lot of women in the group are now doing, you can use my paintings to do that instead of having to come up with your own designs. So, um, and if you are a business person, that means it's a write-off too. So that's an extra little bonus. Um, but let Let's say you're not even at that level and you're like, I don't need— I don't even know how to hold a paintbrush. That's perfect because I teach people at all levels and that is most of my membership. The women who started, most of them had never even picked up a paintbrush before and now they're painting all the time. So if you are like an excited newbie and you would love to paint or you want to know more about painting but you're scared and you don't know where to start, The Inner Tribe is a perfect place for you. So let me pull these comments. I've seen some comments fly up and my eyes are too bad to see them, so I'm gonna pull you guys up really quick. Pam is in, Pam is in our tribe, and if any of the tribe sisters are on here, if you see any questions pop up for me, if you don't mind answering those as well, that will be Awesome. Pam said, are all canvases the same? Sometimes the texture is different. They just have— I mean, there are different qualities. As far as the ones that I use, I buy all the value packs from Hobby Lobby for all of my paintings, and they're pretty much the same. But if you buy more expensive canvases, they can have like a little bit different texture. They may have a different finish on them. Whether they're prepped a little bit more than some of the cheaper ones. So, and if you— I think if you look at the labeling on the packages, it will kind of explain what the difference of those are, if that makes sense. Can you think of anything I forgot, ladies, that I didn't talk about? Hey, Callie! Callie's a new member. She signed up yesterday. Was it yesterday or this morning? I can't remember. So welcome. Oh, and let me show you guys what I'm working on. I'm really excited about this. So for the next 2 days, on Tuesday and Wednesday, when I'm coming on live with you guys, I'm gonna be making this new sign, and it's actually gonna go this way. You may have seen me share a video— not my video, just one of those like viral videos— of that woman painting these really fun brushstrokes all over that black canvas. So that kind of inspired me. Mine's gonna be a little bit different. I'm gonna have a white background, but I'm gonna do— and this is like a frame, or a— yeah, I guess it's a frame. It's like a farmhouse sign that Corey made me a long time ago. But I am going to fill all of this in with all those fun brushstrokes, and then it's gonna say Tribe Sisters across it, and this is gonna hang above my workstation. And then as we have new members coming on, I'm going to be writing their names all over this piece of art inside the lettering, in the background. So it's going to be kind of like graffiti style. So I'm super excited to work on it. Then I think I'm going to paint the frame gold because, you know, I love gold. So anyways, I'm going to be working on that the next couple of days. So you guys will get to see that kind of come to life too. and I'm really excited about that. So I'm gonna have to be writing small on there to get all the names on, but that's gonna be so fun to get to come together. And then tonight, if you want to hear from other tribe members and hear what they have to say, then you want to join us tonight because I have some of the ladies joining me to share their stories and to answer your questions from their point of view. Also. So I'm super excited about tonight. That's 7:30 Central Standard Time. Okay, so here's what I'm gonna do. See if I can move this again. I want to give you guys a really good view of this. So I've got my little handy-dandy camera holder here. So I'm gonna move you for just a second. Don't mind the reach. Hopefully I don't hang up on you. And we're gonna fuck you around. Sorry if I'm making you dizzy. My arm on this thing is not wanting to stay up. I don't know why they're so loose. Just close your eyes while I'm getting it situated here. Now I can get you a little bit closer. Stop moving. It's like this little barrel thing will not lock the way that it's supposed to, and I don't know why that's happening. I'm sorry, hang on just a second. Why is it telling me I can't do that? This was supposed to be a much smoother process than that. Okay, sorry ladies. Can you see okay? We're right side up. The lighting's all right. So these are the little boards that I got, and they came in like a 5-pack at Hobby Lobby, and I just thought they were super cute. And you could do like a horizontal design or a vertical design and then just put a piece of ribbon paint something super cute on there and prop it up on your shelf or whatever you want to do. I just thought they were really cute. So we're gonna try one out today, and this design is taken after one of my original pieces from 6 years ago, my Whimsical Christmas Tree, which I'm going to be giving that template to all of my tribe members too. So I thought that would be a fun bonus for this Christmas season, is to have the original Christmas painting that started the Social Easel. So I'm just gonna get some bright green and white, and I'm not sure on my reds. I've got a cranberry And if you guys are having fun watching, if you want to do me a favor and pass it along with your friends, that's the best compliment you can give me. If you're having fun painting with me, let your friends know about it. We're gonna try some cranberry, and then I'm gonna get like this bright cherry red too, and we're just gonna see, see what we like. Did I get— yeah, I think that's good. So you could do— you know what I actually think I want to do is I kind of like black backgrounds on ornaments like this, kind of chalkboard style. I think that's what I'm gonna do on this one. Oh, my black paint was hiding behind my coffee. And yeah, I'm drinking coffee at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Because my brain's a little tired. All right, so I'm gonna start with my angled brush here, and we're gonna start filling in our background first. And you just want to remember when you're doing this not to put heavy coats on. You just want enough just to cover the wood. We don't want it thick and gloppy. Thank you, Callie. I think I'll do it like this and then maybe do like the Merry Christmas or the Hawkins or something in white up at the top. I love personalized little ornaments. So I like using the angled brush for this. Because it's easy to get in those little sections. See how it's easy to kind of work in those corners without it being too bad? Hold on, let me adjust this camera really quick if I can get it to work with me. Scoot this out of the way. You guys should see my office right now. It's a little insane. Just a tiny bit messy. I had to move things around this morning for my live that I did with Casey over on her page at Pizzazz. If you want to see me and Casey do some hand lettering and getting creative with our traceables that she does, this is what I did this morning. And Casey did her own version, so we did those over on Casey's page, and I shared that on my page, but you can go check out Pizzazz Art Studio and see that. But I had to move my entire desk my workstation desk here up next to my computer, because when we went live with Zoom, I couldn't get it to stream on Facebook from my phone. Hey, Linda. I honestly don't know what they are, Linda. They came in a little 5-pack, 4 or 5 of these little boards together at Hobby Lobby, so So it was in that section of Hobby Lobby where all that— those blank wood things are. Hey, Linda, the other Linda. Both Lindas are in my tribe. Yeah, this will be my second live today, and then we're going live again tonight. Well, actually, Miss Linda Stewart is gonna be live with me again tonight. She ended up, after being with me for a while and then taking my kids' summer Art Camp is now doing kids' paint parties. So it's really, really cool, and it's something she never saw coming. So those kind of stories are always fun to share, and it's just kind of completely changed her life. So she's gonna tell us more about that tonight, and you guys are gonna get to meet her. And I'm hoping someday I get to meet her. I'm trying to talk her into buying a ticket to Heidi's event because I'm going to Dallas next month and she lives in Texas. So all you Texas ladies, Heidi and I are gonna be there next month. She's only got a few tickets left for her live event. Charlotte said, just painted my first two paintings this morning. Hey, that's awesome! Painted her first two, and within 45 minutes someone already wanted to buy them. That is so great. And Charlotte, I think I was talking to you earlier this morning. So you guys remember last week when I painted the peacock feather? I, I set it up on my computer and then I forgot to hit the button to pick the winner. So when I get off here, I'll announce the winner, but one person who shared that video is gonna win my original, my small peacock feather painting that I did last week. I'm sending that to someone, and I will pick that winner when I get off here and then post a photo with the winning person. Would any of you like to win this little cute ornament? We could do the same thing for this one. You should, Linda. Just remember, it's a write-off. I don't even know if you're officially a business yet, but if you are, it is. If you guys want to do another little contest, I can make one of these ornaments to say Merry Christmas and then send some happy mail to someone who sends this video on to their friends. Just let me know when you do. And someone's gonna get a cute little ornament. I'm gonna grab a tiny bit of white and mix it in with my black again. I told you guys, I kind of want to make this— I like it to look kind of chalkboard style, make it a little bit messy like it's been erased. And you'll have plenty of time to get it up for Christmas since I'm doing Christmas in September right now. So now we're gonna start on some of the details. Hang on real quick, I'm gonna pull up my original on my computer. I had it up earlier. To look at, and then my computer shut down. So on my original Christmas tree, I had 3 or 4 different levels. On this one, I've only got 3, so it'll be slightly different. We're gonna play with it a little bit. If you haven't gotten my detail brushes and you're wanting to do a small project like this, these are my detail brushes in my Amazon store. And they are fabulous, and they're perfect for using for this. Let me— I'll get you guys those links really quick. This is a link to my store, and I've got that second— I believe it's the second part of my store— is all my favorite supplies, and that's where you're gonna find these. So I think we're gonna do white, green, and red for our layers. So I've just got a little Little brush here, and I'm just doing a quick coat of white, trying to spread that out. If it gets too gloppy on you, like maybe you got too much paint in one area, just kind of keep spreading it. I know, Lisa, they're awesome. I love them too. I actually have two sets also. That's mostly because I'm not really good at taking care of my brushes. I like to have the extras though. But I'm gonna do this kind of checkerboard-like design in the top here. Sorry, I took that off the screen. Can you— are you guys good now? All right, I wasn't even paying attention. Thank you, Carleen. All right, so I'm gonna do green next. So if you are just joining us and you'd like to win this little handmade Christmas ornament, share the love with your friends, send that video out to them, let me know when you did, and I'll pick a winner to get some happy mail from me and get this little ornament. And we'll keep it going until tomorrow. But this is your— why are some of the detail brushes different lengths? Thickness seems same, but yeah, they're just, they're just called liner brushes. Like, so when you're using them, like, this is a— I almost did it again. I gotta move my coffee. The other day I was teaching and I stuck my paintbrush in my coffee, and I almost did it again. Okay, it's far over here now, so I can't do that. These are called liner brushes. Okay, I haven't used this one yet, but you can— you're not going to hold it straight like this. And push down, but you're just going to kind of drag it and you get these really skinny lines. So there's just several different ones, and these are different sizes too. They all have a little slightly different number. So if you look at those, you can see some different thicknesses. Let me know if you guys have any other questions about supplies and stuff too. I went over in my video last night, like, my top 5, um, supplies But I can go over those again with you guys if you missed that or you need a refresher and just tell you some of my, some of my favorite things. All right, I think I'm gonna do this bottom one, this Cherry Red. Oh, that's pretty. This one's a DecoArt Cherry Red. Now the brush I'm using right now, this is— actually didn't talk about that detail set being one of my favorite brushes, just that you need brushes in general. It was more of my top 5 of like what you need to absolutely like just get started in painting, like your must-haves. but the detail brushes are some of my favorites. The one I'm using right now, this brush is actually from Michaels, and I don't have an affiliate link for that because Michaels hasn't approved me for one yet. I need to talk to them again, but I will still send you that way because these are really, really cheap brushes, and they're awesome because you have all different sizes. So I'll just show you a few of them that come in there. You've got some flats and some rounds and some angled brushes. It's just a really good starter kit, and they're Artist Loft. It's a 10-pack, so this is just a few of the ones that I have, um, but you get them in the art section at Michael's on their end cap. $5 for 10 brushes, you can't beat that. Great place to start. So you don't need to spend a ton of money on supplies, and I just use craft paint, no fancy paint. Alright, now I'm gonna go to— now this is a really, really tiny liner. This is more of like, I think they call it a spotter, but it's super little. It's kind of fun to paint small instead of painting big. I'm so used to painting big. Trying to make sure I don't go off your camera again. And if you want, you can put a second coat of white on when you're doing this. If you can see the color behind there, or like maybe your outline or something, You want to let your paint dry in between coats and then go back and put more on. Don't keep loading it up while it's wet because it's not going to help you. It's not going to help the coverage. It's just going to get thick and gloppy. See how I change the angle that I'm holding it at to help me get my, my angles better too? So totally fine to kind of rotate your workpiece, whatever you're working on, to help you get the angles that you need. We're just gonna smooth this out. Thank you, Becky. Love red and green together. And we're gonna jump back up to the top now. I'm gonna put a base— I keep turning this because I can't decide how I want it. I'm gonna start with— can you guys see okay? I'm gonna start with my star at the top. Now, I don't know if it was just me, but when I used to teach this live in my big version, obviously on canvas, and I said make a star like you did when you were a little kid, there were people who didn't know what I was talking about. So I want to make sure you guys know what I'm talking about when I say make a star like you did when you were a little kid. Remember when you went across and down and up and down and over, right? And then you filled it in. That's the easiest way to make a star. Did I say cross? I feel like I did. I meant star. You guys know what I mean. So that's how we're gonna make the star. Everyone still see okay? Making sure we're— my iPad is saying we're frozen, and hopefully we're not. I'm gonna get out and come back in. Okay, so look good to you guys? So that's, that's how you make a star. It's blurry? Okay, I am I thought I turned my Wi-Fi off last night, but let me double-check. We should be good. I'm good on my end. I'm connected to AT&T. So Charlotte says it's good. Okay, Tisa says it's good. Alrighty, who knows, maybe it's my iPad. I got out and came back in and it worked. So someone else said it was blurry. Elaine, try getting out and coming back in and see if that helps. Did you guys know what I was talking about? Is that how you made stars when you were a little kid? That's how I still make them. It's way easier than doing it any other way, and you know, my style is kind of more loose and whimsical. I don't want it to be a perfect star. I want it to kind of be a little wonky, so I'm just gonna put a little bit of white in here because my red is very transparent, especially because we're on a black background. So I'm going to add a little bit of white to it, and then we're going to let that dry before we add another coat on. Isn't it Seussical? It's very Seussical looking. That's what most people nicknamed my, my Christmas tree. It was my Seussical Christmas tree. Okay, so I'm gonna stay with this little itty-bitty brush I've got, and I'm gonna start— hey, Miss Jessie, we are painting a cute little Christmas tree ornament today. I'm gonna start making some diagonal lines across here, and we're gonna make a diamond pattern. And someone is going to win this little handmade ornament for sprinkling the video out there to their friends. So all you have to do is hit that share button at the bottom and then just comment and let me know, and you'll get entered in to get yourself a little Christmas ornament. I might have to get creative if I want to personalize it. I didn't think about adding my star up there. I forgot that was gonna take up some of the room. All right, so we're gonna start with the little lines. My computer keeps going off. Hang on. It actually looks cute with the stripes, but I am going to come back and make diamond shapes with it. I am using these little pieces of wood, and I honestly don't remember what they're called. I got them at Hobby Lobby in their section where you can just buy these little blanks. There were like 4 or 5 of them in a little plastic package together, super cheap. It was like $2 for 4 or 5 of them. So I'm gonna be real careful not to drag my hand across here, trying to figure out how to hold it best. And I'm going to start coming back the opposite way here. Okay, so I could leave it like this, or I could fill in these little diamonds, and I want to fill them in. So you want to try to be careful when you're doing this, because if you get off on your pattern then you kind of have a mess on your hands. So look at where the diamonds are stacked. I'm gonna start here and start filling this in, which means that one will be filled in. So I'm going straight down in a line here. So wherever those points are touching each other, we know All of those are going to be red inside. And then we're going to jump over here. So again, they're touching. Does that make sense how I'm doing that? So you could go all the way across this way. Got a little outside my line here. But you guys know we're not going to worry about that. I kind of wish I would have drawn another little line here just to kind of pull those out a little bit. That one fills in There we go. Isn't that cute? I love the little diamonds on there. So my star's dry. I'm gonna go back and add another little coat of red, pick up a little bit of white with that. Let that dry a little bit. So for my green, I'm gonna add some stripes in for this one. Thank you for sharing, Annette. So if you guys are joining me late, I just want to remind everyone that tonight at 8:00 p.m. is when the early birds go away. So if you are wanting to join my Inner Tribe membership, it's now open. I only open it twice a year, so we're not gonna open it again until March of 2020, and the price will not be the same. Right now you can join the Inner Tribe membership for only $47 a month. and that is 3 full paintings per month with me. And this is the view you get, by the way. When you're inside the membership, everything is at an aerial view so you can easily see what it is that I'm doing. So you get 3 new paintings a month plus all the other ones that are in my video library. So all of those are included. And then we have a guest speaker come in the 4th week of our month, and that could either be a guest artist or a business coach. Kind of changes up, but we've got a lot of fun things in store for the holiday season. So this is like one of the best times ever to join, because going into the holiday season, we really focus on the seasonal stuff and have so many fun projects and bonuses and all kinds of things inside the Tribe. And if you've tried painting before and maybe you've done it alone and you're just not having the results that you want to with it, this is a great place for you to join and start meeting some other women who are doing the same thing you're doing. And then you have a community of women that you can learn with and share with. And then I'm gonna do like a lighter green, so I'm just taking some of my white and my green together. Oh, but I didn't tell you about the early bird specials. That probably helped. There's 3 early bird specials, and it's my Bird's Nest painting and my Abstract Flowers and my Cactus Trio. So you get all 3 of those bonus tutorials that are not already in my membership. You get
