Painting on Rocks

You may have read my page articles about stone tumbling /polishing  – well, I suppose it was because of that interest that I picked up a book in a local bookshop about painting flowers on rocks by Lin Wellford.

This lady has a lot to answer for! As soon as I saw the book I just had to buy it!

The flowers in the pictures shown on these pages give you some indication of what painting on rocks is about.

I have painted many other stones, and the great thing is you can use any colours you want to. Unfortunately the photo above did not turn out too well as the sun must of been shining at the time (and of course I had used the wrong varnish), but you get the basic idea.

These painted stones can be used indoors and outdoors – colour in your garden all year round.

The trouble is, you never stop looking for new ideas and start to use your ideas on variations of themes.

One example in Lyn’s book is a flower basket painted onto a rock:  I painted the above  flower basket on to an old paving slab that was being kept in a garage for no particular reason.

It was painted several years ago and the colours remained fresh and vibrant for many, many years – even after being outside in all that wind, snow and rain!

I love messing around with different types of paint and painting itself
- anyone can do it and its fun too.

It doesn’t end there!

Not only do I become interested in painting on rocks, Dave happened to see some pictures on the Internet of ladybirds (well, they were called ladybugs by their artist) and suddenly became artistic himself!

He picked up a stone and started to paint. The results of his first artistic endeavours (above) are pretty good (I think so anyway). We love the eyes we added – although don’t really know just how weather-proof they will be!

I know that the author of the book painting flowers on rocks also
has other books available and no sooner did the idea pop into my head … off I went looking for stones that would stand up on their own – to be painted as cottages.

These cottages are not based on any real cottage … but perhaps the next ones may be!

I will leave you with one of my favourite painted stones (for now) – tulips. These actually do look so much better in real life as they again look more shinier because I had used the wrong type of varnish.

The moral of all these pictures is: Have a go!

You can collect suitable stones and materials from almost anywhere – how many people have old paving stones in their garage, or have purchased too many stones for decoration? Loads!

Even my brother has a lot of stones he wants me to collect because they just don’t fit in with his garden scheme now. Garden centres may have unusual items that you can paint too.

I had not picked up pen and paints for years – these are my first attempts and I am sure my painting will improve as the more painting I do, techniques long ago learned and long forgotten, somehow are starting to return.

Mags