On the ELEVENTH Day of Christmas, Sunday, December 21, 2014

I shared on my Facebook Page today that we don't usually have a White Christmas in Middle Tennessee.  The last one on record was in 1974, but we have had snow on Christmas, just not much!  I laugh because it seems that no matter HOW WARM it is on Christmas Day, the weathermen always put a 30% chance of mixed precipitation...This year is NO different...it is to be 43 and yes, we have a 30% Chance of mixed precipitation...not sure WHAT it will be mixed WITH...

The only kind of snowmen we get are ones we paint, so I decided to show you how to paint a snowman that is VERY quick and Easy...I did the frame and painting in about 30 minutes.  If you are not used to painting, you still should easily be able to do it within one hour.

Burlap is so popular, that I had bought these burlap boards...turns out they are NOT easy to paint on, so this project is perfect.  I used a frame that I had gotten at the thrift store for a couple of bucks, so all in all, this is a CHEAP project also.

I used those CHEAP brushes that you get in CHEAP packets...some call them chip brushes...they will probably shed as you paint, but no worries, when it dries, brush them off.  You will need one fairly decent liner, but if you get one of those cheap packets of brushes for about $5, then there is one in there that will do.  I have gotten some pretty good basecoating brushes out of those cheap packages, so you just never know!

Gather your supplies: I use DecoArt Americana Paints because they are WONDERFUL quality.
 Frame
Burlap Board (or wood or canvas)
candle, optional
Larger flat Brush
2 chip brushes
1 liner Brush
White Paint (I used Warm White)
Orange Paint (I used Canyon Orange)
Brown Paint (I used Milk Chocolate)
Red Paint (I used Santa Red)
Black Paint  (I used Lamp Black)
Treasures Chalky Finish Paint (you can use whatever color you wish for the frame)

A Note before we start:
I used the Chalky Finish Paint in Treasure, which is a Turquoise-type color.  You do NOT have to used Chalky Finish Paint, but I love how easily it sands off and the matte finish it leaves.  Also, I often use BLUE to Shade my snowmen, but you could EASILY use another color such as Brown or Black...There are NO rules...Painting should be a reflection of WHAT YOU LIKE!!

If you choose, place wax  randomly around the frame before you paint it.  This will allow the paint to sand off easily in spots.  Paint with the Treasure Chalky Finish paint.  Set Aside to dry.

This is what the burlap board looks like.  It is 8 x 10.

This is the chip brush that I used.  AS you can see, it is a size four...not too big, not too little...JUST RIGHT!

Load the brush with White and draw your outline...The head is basically a half circle...IF you don't feel comfortable free handing this, then use a plate...a dessert plate would probably be about the right size....Go ahead and do the outline for the nose too...come on...you can do it!!

Paint the nose white.  It will take quite a bit of paint.

 

 Paint the head next.  I just poured a blob of paint on the head and brushed it in because it takes quite a bit of paint...now don't go CRAZY with how much paint you squeeze out...about a quarter size at a time is enough.

Load a VERY SMALL amount of the Treasure on your brush and add it to the edge of the snowman's head and around the nose.  When you have finished this, wipe off as much of the Treasure as you can on a rag and then add more WHITE to the brush and go back over it to blend the blue into the white...

With the same brush, Paint the nose Orange.  I have it turned upside down to paint the bottom side.  I added JUST a tiny bit of Brown to ONE EDGE of the brush and placed THAT EDGE on the edge of the nose and painted around the entire nose...this is called shading.  It does NOT take much paint at all.

I wiped as much paint off of my brush with an old rag as I could and then loaded a TINY bit of Red.  THEN I wiped as much as I could off THAT paint off and then lightly painted in my cheek.

I switched to a little better brush that the bristles didn't flare out so much to paint the eyes and mouth with Black.  If you are new to painting, you might want to use a round brush to do this...it REALLY is easier with a better brush, but this ole gal is tough and liked the challenge...BWAH!!  After I painted the eyes and the mouth, I used my hair dryer to dry the paint because you don't want your eyes to turn GREY when you add the white.

I switched to my liner brush to add the eye details with White.  You will notice that I place a line of the LEFT side of each eye and then just made a CROSS and then an X on top of the cross, and a DOT to the center where the lines intersect...in other words, I made a SNOWFLAKE for the eyes!  I then added a white line to the top of the mouth and 3 dots to the top of the cheek.  I added the snowflakes as described for the eyes to the empty place on the canvas and then just some random dots and NO, mine were NOT round...it doesn't matter!!

The last thing I did was to add JUST a touch of the Treasure under the mouth and on the outside RIGHT side of the eyes...do NOT get this dark...I used a DRY chip brush to do this...

The frame has dried while you we were painting our snowman, so to finish, I just sanded over the paint to remove some of the paint to make it look primitive and wiped it off, place the canvas in the frame and THAT is IT!!  What an EASY and GREAT gift to give to a friend!!  

It may not SNOW at my house, but really, this is the BEST snowman EVER because I was able to paint it in a WARM, DRY home!!

I wish Blessings to YOU today...~charlotte♥