Guest Blogger - Little b - Photograph Painting

Hello all!

My name is Amanda, author of the blog

little b.

I'm a new momma who loves my little family, crafting, and sharing my passions with others. I'm recently new to the blogging world and am having such a wonderful time learning from others and getting to share my new journey through mommahood and my crafting ventures!

I am so thrilled and honored to be guest blogging here at Someday Crafts! Being one of the first blogs I came across when I first was exploring blog world, I jumped at the opportunity to come share one of the things I love creating.

Have you ever had a photo that you would love to see as a painted piece of artwork? Well I'm here to show you how :) For this tutorial I used a black and white photo but if you would like to learn how to do the same thing in color feel free to give me some feedback and I'd love to do a follow up tutorial on my blog!

Here is what you will need:

~ Painting canvas {I used a 9in. x 9in. canvas
~ Your favorite black and white photo
~ A copy of your photo {To fit the size of your canvas and printed onto regular computer paper}
~ A painting tray {If you don't have one a plastic plate or even a piece of tinfoil or wax paper would work!}
~ Various sizes of paint brushes
~ Black and white paint {I used gouache paints}
~ A pencil {softer lead works the best}
~ A ball point pen {you want a pen that will not bleed through paper}
~ A cup of water
~ An eraser
~ Tape


Here is the photo I started with...

First, you want to take the copy of your photo, that you printed on regular paper, and draw a layer of pencil onto the back of it...

Next you want to tape it to your canvas, pencil covered side down {only place a piece of tape on the top of the photo}...

Now you take your pen and outline the various shadows. Outline the darkest part of the shadows first, then the next darkest and so on until all hues of the shadows have been outlined...

Your photo should end up looking something like this {my printer wouldn't print out the photo with out the light lines through it, but those aren't part of the photo}...

Looks a little funny right? To help yourself more when it comes to painting you can number each of these sections to make it easier to match the hue of paint to the section of the shadow {kind of like making your own paint by numbers :)}.

Now you can remove the photo from your canvas and you should be left with faint pencil lines where you outlined your shadows on your photo, looking something like this...

I did not number mine, but I recommend for your first time with this project to help yourself get through it a little quicker :)

Now you get to start painting! Starting with your shadows that are completely black, use your black paint to paint those sections in {use your photo you drew on as your reference, this is where the numbering comes in handy :)}...

Next, move on to the second darkest group of shadows. Add white paint to your black paint to lighten its hue {not a lot of paint is needed to do this}...

Continue repeating the last step for each hue of your shadows until you finish painting your photo.

For the areas that are completely white you can just leave that area blank and not paint it with white {that just takes more time and I think it looks better to utilize the white of the canvas}

Once you finish painting in all of your sections, you can use your original photo as a reference to compare to and add any highlights or lowlights with you paints as you see necessary! You're the artist here :)

And voila!!!

You have transformed your favorite photo into a beautiful work of art!

Want to take it one step further??? You can do this same painting in your favorite color! You can create a monotone photo painting by changing the hue of your favorite color. This is done by adding black to the color to make it darker and white to make it lighter. So follow the same steps, but instead you just use various hues of your color! This is fun if you want to have more than one painting side by side :)

Thank you so much for reading my tutorial! I hope you enjoyed it!

As always I absolutely love seeing your finished products, feel free to send me photos by contacting me here {I'm also happy to take any questions :)}

Come visit me at little b and check out more of my life!!!

Happy painting!

AMANDA, THANK YOU FOR THIS GREAT TUTORIAL!!! I love this idea and see so many possibilities. I love the thought of doing a couple different colored paintings of the same picture to match the color of my daughter's room and hanging them side-by-side! Darling.

Go give a shout out to Amanda at little b.