What is She Up To Now? Beach Window Out of A Clock!
by
Cherie
9 Materials
I bought a plastic clock for 3.99 at a thrift store and made into a fun 3D window to the beach. Thrift stores are full of these old clocks. My poor husband thought "What is she up to now?"
The clock wasn't too bad, but I had better ideas. I disassembled the clock from the back with a screwdriver.
I carefully removed the glass.
I pulled out the paper design and saved it to make my template from.
I traced the design onto black foam board (white would be fine too), then cut it carefully out. This is the most important part - make if fit exactly into the "frame"...push all the way in to check fit.
I used tan and white craft paint in a horizontal motion. with a sponge brush. It took two coats. It doesn't need to be perfect. I let it dry completely.
I used a spray bottle to mist my tan background, then took several colors of Unicorn Spit (full strength, just takes a little) and painted this gradient of color, not rinsing my brush between colors. I love the way Unicorn Spit is so easy to blend. The colors I used for the water were Lemon Kiss, Zia Teal, Dragon's Belly, and Blue Thunder.
I used white craft paint to dot on waves with a paintbrush. Some of the white is full strength and some is diluted (see picture).
I used a little Lemon Kiss Unicorn Spit on the sand, and shaded under the edge of the white foam with a blended line of Squirrel (brown) Unicorn Spit. This brown shading will really make it look real. The Unicorn Spit will stay wet and you can blend it with brush strokes and add a little water to your brush.
I drew a starfish in pencil lightly. You can print this pic and use as a template if you need it..he's kind of at an angle to look like it is laying in the surf.
I used Phoenix Fire Unicorn Spit to paint the starfish. Make sure to dilute the part "in the water" You can also go over that part with a wet brush to thin it and even add some diluted Zia Teal over it, if you want to. Then I blotched some white paint over part of the starfish. Then I used a little Lemon Kiss to highlight the top of the two forward starfish legs. ..(are they called legs?)
I used some diluted Squirrel (brown) Unicorn Spit to shade in front of the starfish, where it touches the sand...just a thin blended line right up to him, to make him look dimensional. I also made some little dots as specks of sand in the foreground. Mixed a few colors in there included a light pink. Next I SEALED it with an OIL-BASED polyurethane, in glossy and let it dry. Only use oil-based sealer on Unicorn Spit.* Make sure you make note of the plastic hanging part on the back of the clock-frame when you hot glue it in, so you can hang it if you want to...! The board warped a little but I hot glued it with a high temp glue gun back into the clock-frame, so it was flat.
I painted the plastic frame with a mix of grey and white acrylic craft paint (it stuck right to the plastic), then after it was dry, I sanded it to weather it and make the shapes stand out.
Here is where I messed up cutting the shape of my foam board...So I had to think of what to do next....While I was thinking about that, I used a high temp glue gun to adhere my design flatly back into the clock-frame.
I decided to put some tiny shells and bits of shell (from craft store) in to give it character and cover the part I messed up. Since the part I messed up was at the bottom, the shells are loose, and just cover it up. You can also see in this pic that I painted the inside rim of the frame grey and white, plus the outside rim, as well. Then the best part was reassembling the whole thing with the clean glass in front of my painting.
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4 of 102 comments
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Wow awesome!!
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Thank You!!!
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Just an idea...how about painting the glass on the inside then gluing shells on the bottom on the outside...? I've never done this and I'm definitely not a Picasso lol....
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Great idea too!
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