Cherry Blossoms and Butterflies 🌸

Hey guys, happy new years! We are going to do cherry blossoms and butterflies on this beautiful Santorini stone. You do not have to use a Santorini stone but if you can find a white stone or a lighter colored stone or prime your stone with white paint before you do this step, that will work as well. So what I've done is I've really watered down some acrylic paints. So there's three different shades. There's jungle green, there's teal and I believe like an aqua color. I will list all of these in the description but what I've done is I've really watered them down and now I'm using a sponge to daub it onto the rock and give it like a watercolor kind of background looking like a sky. That's what I'm going for. So it's like really super watered acrylic paint and then I am just dabbing it on with a sponge. Any sponge will work but I will list these sponges from Martha Stewart in the description so that you know where I got mine. You don't have to buy the same ones if they're too expensive which I do find, you know, as an artist I don't want to spend too much money creating but these last a long time if you look after them so they're worth the money trust me. If you have bought them recently and tried them out they are amazing. So I'm using just a couple of different colors of bluish green and teal to give me that nice background and I've gone around the edges so I'm gonna let that dry and then I'm gonna add hologram 2796 to give that sky some sparkle because you know me. It's a new year but save me. Sorry guys. Sorry not sorry. All right so now that I've let the hologram paint dry on there I'm going to start putting my little branches using a nice dark brown and I'm going to leave some little lumps and bumps along my branches and you will understand a little bit later why I've done that. Sometimes a little blob actually works out so you can work with it especially if you're working on little branches. So I'm leaving little blobs and blips here and there and we're going to have leaves growing out of them or new cherry blossom buds growing out of them. So you will see as we go along I don't just have perfect little sticks. There's some little lumps and bumps in places and I'm okay with that because that's natural. So now I'm using a vintage tea rose. You can take a look at pictures of cherry blossoms online and see what color you want to use but these are the colors I'm choosing and I will list them in the description. Best way for me to describe the what the petal on a cherry blossom is like a soft diamond. So if you can do a diamond shape for each petal but make it soft instead of pointy corners and and sharp corners and sharp edges just do soft diamonds and that is the best way for me to explain the cherry blossom petal and there's five of them on on so on mine there are five petals and they range from like a like a dark pink to a light pink so I'm kind of going somewhere in the middle with mine. I'm going to be using a sponge as well to daub out all of the petals and get rid of all of my brush strokes because I want to get rid of those. Also it covers there seems to be better coverage when I use a sponge so you don't see through it as easily and you don't need as many coats of paint to get the desired look. So I'm going to get my sponge out once I have outlined my shape of my flowers and then and then we'll do some definition on those flowers as well. So as you can see there's some floating buds here. I will be attaching them to the branch a little bit later. I just want to get the pink used up so that I can close the lid and yeah work on those a little bit later. As I said I'm using a sponge again to just daub out all the brush strokes. I don't like that look and it's completely optional for you guys if if it's something that you guys don't actually mind but it's just me. I find that it looks nicer and more even I guess. It's easier to work with that way. So now what I'm doing is I'm adding a little bit of white. So I just want to lighten the inner portion of the flower. So I'm just going to add a little bit of white with my sponge. Not too too much. I don't want to make it bright bright white. I just kind of want to lighten the inner portion and leave the outer edges that that vintage pink. And I will be adding some magenta to part of the petals and I'll show you that as well. It's just to give some of the flowers a little boost of color on on the tips. Kind of blushing I guess. Like I've mentioned in other videos I call it blushing because that's what it reminds me of. Just going to kind of blush some of the edges of these flowers with some magenta and yeah I'll show you. So here's the magenta. Like I said and I'm just going around some of the edges not all the way around and then I'm sponging it in while it's still wet just to kind of blush that outer edge. I will go back in with magenta a little bit later when I'm outlining with black just to define the edges of those petals a little bit more with magenta. Now you can't see what I'm doing. If you see my paintbrush flopping around um that's because I'm using a sponge but my paintbrush is in the same hand that my sponge is in. So if it looks ridiculous that's because I am. Welcome to Rachel's Rocks Canada 2020. Oh I've missed you guys so much. I'm all moved in. I'm all happy to be moved in but I am still dealing with children. Still trying to work with children because they haven't gone back to school yet. But they will be and I'm very much looking forward to getting some routine back in all of our lives. I tell you that much and back to painting with you guys as well. So you can see I'm adding some classic green leaves. Just little ones. Some of the little nubs that are poking out on the branches are actually going to have a leaf coming out of it. I'm using a classic green but then I'm also going to go in with a lime green or a light green to just kind of highlight some of the leaves a little bit. But classic green is a good one to start with. It's a nice leaf green to me. I use it often with my leaves. So I would love to hear what you've painted over the last couple of weeks. If you want to leave a comment and let me know I'd love to hear. I need some inspiration for some tutorials this year. I tell you I'm pretty much fed up with winter. I'm wishing that our snow would turn to rain and head to Australia right now. And I would like to ask for everyone who even glimpses at this channel to please pray for Australia and everyone there and all of their animals. And it's such a sad sad horrible thing. A nightmare. And that's all I see all over the all over social media and it's heartbreaking. So can we all just collectively send some rain there please? Please take my snow. I don't need any more. Just pray for Australia guys. So I'm adding some light green. I'm going to use my little blending brush that I've created. I will leave the tutorial in the description as well for that. Yeah so that you can if you don't have a tiny little sponge. Sometimes you can use makeup sponges like eye shadow sponges for this little part here. But what I do is I do like a strip of light green with my fine lining brush and then I use my small blending brush to just kind of blend it out so it's not like a straight line there anymore. It looks more like the the leaf has been highlighted by the sun a little bit So that's what I'm going to do to each individual leaf that I've painted on here. And like I said I'll leave the description in the description the tutorial for both the brushes that I'm using throughout because it's super handy dandy. I'll tell you that. It saved my life and saved me from looking for paint brushes every time I went out. A new paint brush to line my stuff with. I never found anything that I could like I don't know if it's because I'm not professionally trained in artistry. I don't know if it's because I didn't go to school and was was not taught how to handle a fine lining brush. But a lot of us aren't so I figured out a way to do it and then shared it with you guys and you guys seemed to find lining a little bit easier. So now what I'm going to do is I'm going to outline all my leaves and all my flowers. I'm going to leave the branches alone. I think they're nice and and dark and they stand out enough. So I'm just going to outline the flowers and the leaves and the buds give them a little bit of an outline. I'm also like I said going to be adding a little bit more magenta as well but I don't do it all in order of the way I'm speaking to you. So you'll see me add some magenta and then go back to the black and then add some more magenta. I'm actually kind of cleaning up my black lines and thinning them out using my magenta so it kind of helps clean up some of the the black that I have done too thick and it doesn't look very nice anymore. So you can easily go back and fix things you just have to be creative about it. So I am outlining all of them. Once they're outlined we'll work on the center part of the flower but I want to get this part all done first. So here I've gone in with some magenta and I'm just sticking to the areas that I blushed with magenta earlier and putting like a a line of magenta along the edge so it's very noticeable in the end that there's that texture there or that change of color there. Because like I said you do see them in a range of of pinks so and even up to like almost a white color cherry blossoms can be. But I wanted to use some pink in there not too much though. And I'm actually not going to put any kind of glitter on the petals but you can. So it's just an option if you want to try that out. But I'm leaving the glitter to the background on this one. And Santorini stones are very glittery on their own so you don't even have to do the painted watercolor background. You can leave it. If you have a Santorini stone and you're lucky enough to have one, you know by all means keep it that beautiful background. I've noticed that when I resin it I can still see the shimmer if you hold it under a certain light. So some people are worried about the shimmer on Santorini. It loses its facets when you resin it but they are there they just are a bit deeper. You have to look for them under a different light but the sparkles are still there. But I made mine a little more sparkly with that hologram. As usual, you know me. You guys know me. I am enjoying being back guys. It is good to be painting again. It's therapeutic. How many of you feel like painting is... I know your dishes are piling up and your laundry. Who's got to go check the dryer right now? Or the line? Who's got their clothes on the line right now? I know that it might be stopping you from doing other things that aren't as pleasing like housework but it's so therapeutic. It is so therapeutic to sit down and create something even if you're not doing it with a friend. If you're just by yourself it is so therapeutic to just create. Just let whatever happens happen. Come out that paintbrush and onto a stone or onto a piece of wood or a mailbox. It's so uplifting and it just feels so good. So how many of you find art therapeutic? That's one of the things that I stress more than anything. It makes me feel good to do this. That's for sure. But then I go see my dishes. I know you guys know what I'm talking about. Sometimes I've had to push aside a bunch of stuff just to sit their dinner plates down. A bunch of rocks. That's what it is. So now I'm going to the center. Now that everything's been outlined to my liking and carefully of course, I'm going to the center with my blending brush again. So what I've done is I've used a little bit of berry wine and just sponged it on lightly in the center. Not too much paint. You don't want it to be a thick layer. Then I went over top of that with just a little bit of black just to darken it a little bit. And now I'm going back in with my berry wine which I just introduced to you in a weird fashion. And I'm doing little hairs off of the center. If you've seen my gnomes, you've seen how I do the little ball on their hat where I just fan out a bunch of hairs. That's what I'm doing here as well. You don't necessarily need to do it in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion. I'm just trying to make it look like there's a bunch of little hairs coming off of the center of the flower. And then I'm going to add some dots to the ends of those. And to me that's what I see when I see a beautiful cherry blossom. So you can take a look at pictures of course online and go from there. You don't have to use my rendition. But this is just what my mind sees when I think of a cherry blossom. So I'm just going in with a dotting tool. You can use a toothpick. You can use anything that has a tip like a pen that doesn't work anymore. You know anything like that. And you can use it to dip in your paint and just leave tiny little dots in random spots where you just put all the hairs. And it just makes it look a little bit more like a cherry blossom. I love cherry blossoms. I have an owl tattoo. I have a mandala tattoo which I created myself. I also have this big long arm one that is begonias and eucalyptus and it's just gorgeous. Shout out to Chalaine at Annapeg Tattoo here in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. She is a fantastic artist and amazing person to sit down and and talk to for a few hours. I know I've been in her chair for like at least at least it could be more seven hours straight for some of mine. So um yeah I would love to get cherry blossoms in my next tattoo. I'm really really considering it. I probably won't be the one to create it though. I trust a paintbrush. I don't trust a pencil. I don't I'm not good at drawing things and that might not make sense to many people. But I really don't feel comfortable drawing but I feel comfortable when I have a paintbrush in my hand. And that's only been like I'm self-taught. Just started painting seven years ago first time except for like art class in grade school. But no never any kind of lessons. So I'm comfortable with what I've taught myself and that's why I like teaching you guys. I don't hold any secrets back. So now I am going to add some gold because I well actually first I'm going to do some butterflies. But I just want to let you know I'm not leaving this one out without gold. I will be adding gold to the upper portions of all the branches so that they look like they are highlighted by the sun. Now you can leave it without adding butterflies. You can stop where we were right there and go seal it and be proud of yourself. But I'm adding a couple of random shaped butterflies in here just to fill in some of the sky that I've created. But once again this is completely optional. You don't have to do the same kinds of butterflies. You don't have to have them facing the same direction. You can do them completely different. You don't even have to have butterflies. You can put little bumblebees. You could put dragonflies. You don't have to do anything. You could just leave it the way it was. So I'm adding three little pale um I'm going to use pearl on them like a white pearl and then I'm going to blush them a little bit with purple. And yeah so I've put on three different butterflies here. I'm going to mess with the shapes of them afterwards once I let that paint dry that black paint. And now I'm going in with white and I'm thinning out some of my black lines as well and fixing places that I wasn't happy with. That's the best way for me to explain it. Just make sure that your black paint is dry so that you can go over top with the white without turning everything gray. It just turns into a mess. So a hairdryer on a light not very hot level on your hairdryer and just lightly dry your stuff between coats so that it doesn't take as long to get you back into working on your painting. I always have a paint a hairdryer so close to me. And as long as it's on a very low setting it won't crack your paint or anything like that. And don't hold it too close of course because you could end up making the paint move around a little bit. But yeah I'm an impatient painter. I don't like waiting for things to dry. That's why resin is so hard for me but so worth the wait. I'm sure anyone who uses resin understands what I'm saying. I love you resin. Now I am just filling them all in with white paint which I'm gonna let dry. I'm just kind of priming the wings so that I can go on to color it afterwards. And if you don't like the shapes of my butterflies I understand. There's the one on the right hand side which really bothered me and ended up being oddly shaped and very strange looking compared to the other two. So I wasn't as happy with him but he's still beautiful. The other one's not so bad. But yeah how do you fix it if you make a big mistake on a butterfly? How do you fix it and go back to that beautiful background again? It's not so easy sometimes. That's why it's a good idea to sketch them on with pencil first so that you know what you want which I didn't do for this at all. So yeah I'm learning my lesson. It still ends up beautiful just oddly shaped. You'll tell me. You'll tell me what happened to that one on the right. Well watch the tutorial guys. One of his wings grew and grew. So you can't see what I'm doing but I'm actually filling in his wings with the white right now. Although it looks like I've stepped away and I'm not even working on my stone. I do get told by you guys that I should have like reference spots where I should keep my stone. That way it's never out of focus. But yeah I cannot remember everything. I'm not good at this part. So here's the Folk Art Pearl White that I'm using. I'm going to check I believe. Yeah it is literally called Pearl White and it's number 659 from Folk Art and it's beautiful. So I'm just outlining the outer edges with it first but then I'm going to sponge on the pearl and it gives it like a very soft butterfly wing kind of texture to it. They all have like a little gleam to them. So when I've used a sponge to sponge it all out it just looks so beautiful. It's hard to tell in in the video. I wish that I could show you what I see. So I've added a little bit of purple just to the part where it's close to the body of the the butterfly and now I'm blushing it. So I'm doing the same thing that I did with the outer edges of the petals only I'm doing it to the inner portion of the butterfly wings. Just giving a little bit of a purple blush to it. You can add as much of that blush as you want but it's easier to do it while the pearl paint is still wet. Make sure you do it while it's still wet and then blush on. I use a little paintbrush to get it where I want it to be and then I just sponge it out and make sure it looks blushed enough for me. So I'm adding a little bit more and then sponging it upwards in with the pearl paint and it all just ends up looking so pretty. You can use any color you don't have to use purple. I wanted to keep the butterflies fairly light and not as distracting as the flowers. I wanted the flowers to really stand out so I'm putting more detail in the flowers than what I am the butterflies. They're still going to be really pretty but they're just simple. They're going to be more simple so they're light there's not going to be like any big designs or anything on their wings just the pearl and the blush of purple looks nice enough with everything else that's going on. So I'm just going to leave them rather plain. Now I will go in and outline their wings properly and fix their bodies a little bit. With each one give them some antennae and yeah keep them really super simple. Not going to do too too much to distract our eyes away from the beautiful cherry blossoms and the sparkling background too. You don't need you don't need too much to be honest. Once they're all outlined I am going to go back in and thin out some of the black paint once it's dry because some areas do get a little thicker by accident and so yeah I will go in with some pearl white again on the um just to kind of thin out the black so you'll see each one will gradually get blushed. So pretty just so pretty and here I'm going in with the pearl paint like I said to thin out the black lines a little bit just to clean it up. Super pretty very delicate looking like pearl paper pearl paper butterflies. I hope you guys have been super busy over the holidays and now ready to get back to normalcy. Got to see family and friends and loved ones and oh Christmas is such a stressful time of year for so many people. I just hope everyone is feeling amazing today. There I have blushed them that one's facing us weird see that one on the right I don't know about him he's still pretty but I don't know about him. Now I am taking the gold to just the right side of the branches just want to make it look like there's a little bit of sunlight gleaming on the branches there. I'm not going to outline them in black like I said I'm just going to stick with the highlight of gold along the edges. I didn't want to leave this one without gold. I knew I could find somewhere for it. I always do. Now you can put glitter in the centers of your flowers. You can do way more to your butterflies if you really want to it's completely up to you. I hope that this has been a fun one to create guys because it's super pretty and I love cherry blossoms like I said huge fan of butterflies as well so why not. I have a few butterflies on my channel but none of them are simple like this but yet still so delicate and pretty so I hope that they were fun for you and you can now take this with you and create. I'm going to put my initials RM. I'm going to add a little bit of gold to the edge of my RM as well just to fancy it up a little. What do you think guys? I'm sure you want to see it resined right? That's like my favorite part in the whole video. How many of you like the resin part? Here comes, don't mind my funny background, here it is. You can see all that glitter. You can see the beautiful watercolor background nicely. The pearl on the butterflies really stand out now. It's so beautiful. I love you guys. You know I've missed you. So glad to be back. I'm going to be working on some more for you. So get excited. Get your paintbrushes ready and I love you. Thank you guys for being patient waiting for me. Bye!