14 June 2015

Litha Whimsical Plaque





Hi ho all! Bright blessings of Litha be upon you! 

I wanted to make a fun, sunshiny craft for this day. So, I have created an easy, whimsical plaque for you to make. My moon looks like it is totally in love with my sun.

I had fun creating this little craft and I hope you enjoy it. I created a little summer poem to go with this, but you can use any favorite poem for this plaque. Or don’t use one at all. It’s all up to you because it’s your plaque.



For this craft you will need:

Some cardboard
A variety of acrylic paints, your color choices
Plain polymer clay
A wooden plaque
E-6000 glue or shoe goo (same stuff)

The first thing to do is decide what shapes you would like to make your sun and moon to be and cut out that shape from the cardboard. My sun cutout is approximately 6 ½ inches from point to point and my moon is around 3 ½ inches. You will be covering these with clay so keep that in mind when sizing for your plaque. I think the clay added around a ½ inch thickness to them.

I did not wrap in aluminum foil before covering in clay. I just covered them with the clay and they did fine during baking. I baked at 275 degrees for 20 minutes.



I didn't make them super smooth when I added the clay. I left them a bit rough looking to keep some character to their whimsical looks. I made the points a bit longer on the sun and gave the some curve so make them look like flames shooting out. I gave the moon a half face, while I didn't give the sun one at all. I’m just going to paint the face on the sun.



After they have baked and cooled, decide how you want to paint. I am painting a yellow base on the sun before adding the sun. Let it dry.

When it has dried, you can draw out a face. I want a full face for the sun, so I will use circles to make the face.


Now, I’ll just paint it in. I’m going with an orange and red coloring with white highlighting. Add black to define. I drybrushed most of the colors on.

Keep filling in the cheeks to your satisfaction. Add black to the lip and nose to define. Add some white around the eyes and on top of cheeks.


Add orange to the eyelid and red to the eyes.


















Add black to the pupils, yellow around the pupils, a white highlight down the nose.  Define the eyes with black, drybrush some black shading. Drybrush the pupils with white for highlighting and add eyelashes and eyebrows. Highlight the chin.



Finally, drybrush some dark orange on the points and around the face to give it some flamy definition. Your sun is done.


Now for the moon. You only have to draw the eye really for the moon. Paint your moon with a base of white, let dry, and draw out your eye.



Fill in the eye with a dark blue, fill in the pupil with black. While that dries, drybrush black to define the nose. Add some drybrushed blue to the cheeks to define. Blue on eyelid. Go back to the eye and add some light blue around the pupil. Line the eyes with black, put a bit of white on the lid to highlight, also add white to the cheek to create a roundness. Paint the mouth with a black line. Define with bottom lip with a bit of black. 

For the plaque, use the colors that you want for a sky.  Decide on your placement for the sun and moon.




After you see where they will be placed you can paint your clouds and poem on it. I made a simple little poem for the plaque.

"I will honor the day, and dance with the fae,
beneath the sun, the moon, and the stars"

Of course you don't have to use mine. Use something that makes you think of this time of year.

When you have painted your poem add some watery clouds by dipping your paintbrush in water and then into the white. Let this drip into cloud shapes. Put the clouds where your moon and sun will sit on the plaque. When your poem and clouds have dried and splatter some "stars" on the plaque. 


Place the sun and moon back on the and glue down with either e-6000 glue or Shoe goo. Shoe goo is the same thing plus you get twice as much for a fraction of the cost of e-6000. 
If you plan on hanging this outside put a couple of coats of outdoor polyurethane on the entire plaque.





I hope you enjoyed this craft!

Brightest blessings,

Saga


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