Tree OF Seasons

There is a tree picture floating around on pinterest called the tree of life. It's very beautifully done, & anyone who knows me, knows that I love trees, & birds, & Halloween, & baking, & chocolate, well I love a lot of things but I really have a thing for trees right now. You can order the painting online for $350!! Yikes, it didn't look too complicated so.. I saved up for 40% off michaels coupons to start buying canvas. I used the long rectangular canvas for this project, but I did see another blogger do it with square canvas, so it depends on the look you're going for. I liked the uniqueness of the rectangle canvas, and the fact that the tree would be tall (like a tree is, on the square canvas the tree was more spread out and shorter). After going to michaels, 4 days in a row, I was ready to start painting!!! I went with the original paintings background colors, blue, green, red, and yellow. It has a gradient effect which seems like no big deal. But if you're like me (& you like to make things harder than they should be) it was a big deal! My advice is to purchase the acrylic paint in the color you want, don't mix the color and then add white to get the gradient effect, otherwise your color won't match and you'll get to paint 4 canvases 3 times each. Ya fun right!! I also recommend a roller, I bought a cheap Martha Stewart one at michaels, and it sucked, but got the job done. After I figured out not to mix my colors, I began with my pure blue, painted a few strips, then added a little white, painted a few strips, added more white, etc. Same with red, green, & yellow. This was the hardest part!! But you can choose to make it really gradient, or not at all. Its very subtle and most people may not even notice the effect right away since there's a big tree over it!

Whew.. I figured out the gradient then I needed to decide the order of canvas. This sounds straight forward, but it's not! The original had it red, yellow, blue, & green. I wanted mine to go along with the seasons & red is not Winter to me.. Ideally I wanted Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Blue, green, yellow, red. I just didn't like how that ordered looked, yes I'm crazy, but it didn't jive with me.. I don't know why! After staring at it in different orders for many hours I decided on red, yellow, green, blue. That is almost the same as the original! Ya I know, & my seasons are backwards. Fall, Summer, Winter, Spring. That's how I preferred it, & that's how I did it.

OK now onto the fun part, & this was really fun, well it gets more fun later.. So if you've never seen a sharpie paint pen, get one! Oh my goodness they are the more amazing things (I say that a lot, but I really mean it with these!). I would not recommend trying to paint the outline of the tree using a paint brush onto your canvas, unless you're a pro painter, which I am not. The sharpie made it SO easy, no stress, no mess!! I just shook it, and went to work. Tape the edges of each canvas then push them all together so you can get the branches exact. Draw your tree on. After I had the outline I added some little slightly curled branches to make it look more tree-like. Then I filled it in with my brown paint. At first I was trying to add texture & detail by using 2 shades of brown then I realized my canvas was so dark & it was blending so much that I couldn't even tell. I gave that up & just used 1 color, easy!

OK OK now for the super awesome really fun part! Grab all the acrylic colors you want to use for your leaves (swirls) & squirt them onto a paper plate (if you're like me, or a nice paint palette, if you're a pro). I thought about using a circular sponge brush to do this, but it wouldn't achieve the swirl look I was going for... So next best thing? Finger paint!!! Yes I finger,painted all my swirls & it was so much fun! I just dipped my finger (index) into a few colors & swirled it on. I really like the effect because I could use dark blue & light blue on one swirl, then dark blue, white, & green on the next. I used greens, blues, purples, & white for the green & blue canvas. Reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, & white for the red & yellow canvas. I decided I wanted some smaller swirls too so I used a Q-tip dipped in the paint swirl. It worked & I didn't have to go buy more supplies!!

Final product, I have a tree!!

& you can too!!!

This item is now available in my etsy shop
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