Good Morning, Nice mirrors you've painted for your friends. I like the flower one best but the elven one would go great in my master bedroom. I really like the splatter of white around the flowers it really adds to it. So happy to have you here posting with us. Have a great day and keep painting!

How pretty and what good gifts ideas!! The elven one is my favorite. I love Lord of the Rings too. Just re-read the series then watched the movies again. Can't wait to see your next ones. =) ~Anj

thank you for the lovely comments ladies :) i'm glad i got 1:1 vote on the mirrors... :D and anj... LOTR rules!

Your painting on those mirrors looks so perfect that they almost look like screen printing or something. I'm sure anyone who receives them as gifts will be thrilled.

Tell us a bit about your "technique". You are doing more than just the One Stroke. Are you using thick or thinned paint? Did you do the sunflower centers with a scruffy brush? On the white on black design, did you outline and then fill in or just stroke the full width just by pressing and lifting the brush? Inquiring minds want to know! ;o) Luvs

I like both of them - you did a great job painting. The black and white really stands out so it is my favorite.
B

hello luvs and paintingfool :)
firstly, thank you for the great comments :)

oh dear... luvs... your questions are a little too technical for me, but i'll try to explain :) well.. the sunflower is definitely one stroke... that's how i learnt it anyway. i didn't base the mirrors because they already came in that black and looked totally cool! i didn't follow any template for the sunflowers, i just drew circles (centers) where i wanted the flowers to be then painted the petals on.

i use like perhaps 5 colors (waterbase acrylic by jo sonja)and did perhaps 3-4 layers of petals...

the colors for the petals were : yellow oxide (the brownish petals at the base), light yellow and warm white. for the upper layers i loaded warm white + light yellow then tipped the brush with yellow-orange and then some of the topmost petals were just warm white tipped with pale gold. i normally don't use pale gold on sunflowers but seeing that they were christmas gifts... i thought to give the flowers some 'glow' :)

based the centers with a medium brown (hiding all the flaws at the base of the petals :) the petals were drawn outside to in) then used an old stiff brush to stipple burnt umber on the outside of the flower center, and yellow oxide + moss green to stipple the center of the flower center. i then used a stylus to put the dots on the center (warm white, light yellow and moss green)

finally, i spattered the whole thing with pale gold using a tooth brush. wiped off any access spatters i didn't want, hence you only see the spatters near the flowers... to give it some magical stardust qualities :) (i think)

finished off with 2 layers of satin varnish.

for the elven mirror, i first designed the motif on a piece of paper then copied the design onto a transparency (some how i always prefer to keep my designs on tracing paper or transparency... transparency last longer and u can actually flip it the other way and do the opposite if needed) (i also use transparency for stencils.)

then i transferred the motif onto the mirror using white transfer paper. the rest was just filling in the blanks.

i use warm white and did like 3 layers to have it properly based. i also use the aid of a medium call 'stroke and blend' by jo sonja so that the painting is smooth. for the topmost layer i used pearl white to give the motif some luminescence (tho it just looks white in the picture) shaded parts of it with very diluted pale gold for dimension. finished off with 2 layers of satin varnish :)

oh dear... i hope i'm not too long winded :) but those are the techniques i used (if you can call them techniques :) hope it helps :)

You explained very well, and I always learn something new. Never heard of "stroke and blend", sounds like a neat thing to have especially if it helps to avoid the raised edges on the lettering. I love the way you did the layers on the sunflowers too. Thanks for giving me more details, you do beautiful work. Luvs

:) you're welcome luvs :) always glad to share :) maybe i'll just do an instruction sheet (like the one my art instructor gave us) on the sunflowers and post it here. it'll probably be so much easier to understand if you see it :) have a good day :)

Beautiful work!! Luthien!! Lovely gifts!! Some folks are going to be very pleased!!Jan

thank you jan :) i sure hope so... :))))))

Love your mirrors!
I have painted some of those same mirrors myself and they do make great gifts.

Another LOTR fan here, been one since we were 'required' to read it back in the day.

hello kraftymom :) thank you! yea... so practical and paintable. even if you don't paint them, they'll still be good gifts :) i'm glad ikea came out with the black line (use to be only pine ones)... they look really cool especially with motifs. once again.... (drumroll) LOTRs RULES!!!!!

They turned out Beautiful!
Your friends will be thrilled!
Hugs
Diana

thanks diana! i sure hope so :)