You are cordially invited to meet the new Bride Ornaments for 2007!  There are 4 different styles of dress, and you get to choose the hair color & skin tone for your bride at no extra charge!  These ornaments are painted on both sides - to see pictures and for ordering information go to my new wedding ornament page. 

I’ve designed a new free pattern that my newsletter subscribers get to preview first!  It is a design I came up with for a purchased ornament cutout.  I’m kind of a newbie when it comes to flower painting, but I think this came out pretty good!  The ornament is painted with a front & back – so when your fairy twirls in the breeze she will look like she is dancing on the wind! 

If you’d like the pattern for my “Flower Fairy Ornament”, just sign up for my newsletter here: http://www.robynwarne.com/newsletter.html  it’s easy & free! You’ll receive a link to download the PDF file with the pattern in the newsletter. 

This cute little painted wood tag is called the “Sweetheart Bear Tag”. The pictures show how you can use your hand painted tags to embellish gifts and accessories!

When I use one of my tags on a gift, I like to write a personal message on the back with paint or a paint pen. It makes a neat little keepsake of the occasion. I’ve also used tags as embellishments on bags like the hand painted tote in the photo.

 They can be dressed up even more with charms, ribbons and beads! (Just be sure not to use small items that can be a choking hazard if your gift is for a young child!)

If you’d like the pattern for my “Sweetheart Bear Tag”, just sign up for my newsletter here: http://www.robynwarne.com/newsletter.html  it’s easy & free! You’ll receive a link to download the PDF file with the pattern in the newsletter. 

Painting skin tones can be a challenge. I find most of the bottled acrylic flesh tones artificial looking. They have too much of a pink or peach tone to them. Two that I do like are Delta’s Fleshtone & Dresden Flesh. For basing I’ll mix them with titanium white to lighten, then use the straight color for shading.

One of my favorite light skin tone mixes is titanium white + raw sienna. Using an old brush for mixing the paint, I add a dab of raw sienna & mix until I’m happy with the shade. By adding the raw sienna in tiny amounts I can be sure of not making the mix too dark. If I need a slightly pinker tone, I will add a tiny touch of cadmium red medium or napthol red light.

To paint darker skin tones, I have 3 mixes that can be used depending on the tone I need. The mixes are made with raw sienna, burnt sienna and burnt umber. When mixed equally with titanium white they produce nice brown flesh tones. I use these mixes as the base color, then add some more titanium white to the original mix to create the highlight color. Shading colors can be made by adding a little more of the brown pigment used to create the mix.  

If you look at the painted samples you will see the difference in tone produced by the 3 different browns.

The raw sienna mix has a slight yellow cast to it. The burnt sienna mix has a slightly reddish cast. The burnt umber has a neutral cast. You can enhance or play down these casts by adding other colors to these basic mixes. Try adding a tiny touch of cadmium red medium to the raw sienna mix or a touch of cadmium yellow medium to the burnt sienna mix. A small amount of ultramarine blue will cool your mix if it is too warm.Experiment a little! Play with your pigments & have fun.