The Dish on As You Wish

I Love My Mummy!

Posted on: October 29th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

Halloween is literally right around the corner! This year try a different take on the classic handprint with this whimsical MUMMY! 

1)      Begin by randomly putting masking tape down the center of the plate making horizontal stripes about an inch apart.

2)      Paint the child’s hand except for the thumb with Black Lab paint. You will place two vertical handprints over the horizontal stripes of masking tape so that the heal of the first hand print is at the top of the plate, and the fingers of the second handprint are at the bottom of the plate. 

3)      Gently pull the tape off the plate. If there are white spaces where the tape was, paint the child’s fingers and make finger prints in the white spaces. Making sure to leave the space at the top white for the eyes.

4) Using a large round brush paint two round circles for the eyes using Hi Ho Silver.

5)      Using a number two pencil sketch the outline of the mummy around the handprints. Using a large square brush paint one coat of Hi Ho Silver as the background around the mummy.      

6) Cut the basic shape of the mummy out of a piece of butcher paper. Lay the cut out shape on top of your handprints – this will protect it when you splatter. Use a toothbrush dipped in Coffee and Cream paint and splatter all over the plate. Repeat with Hi Ho Silver and Black Lab Paint. 

7)      Using Black Puffy Paint outline the shape of the mummy, the eyes – adding black puff dots in the center of the eyes. Then write I LOVE MY MUMMY at the top! The child’s name can go at the bottom of the Mummy or anywhere else on the plate you choose.

8)      Now use Black Funwriter and go around the rim for a barbed wire edge. Just make sort of jagged, imperfect lines and add some x’s and some dashes wherever you see fit.

Who doesn’t LOVE their MUMMY?

Hello Jack!

Posted on: October 19th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

Now here’s a skeleton I wouldn’t mind hanging around in my kitchen. He’s so fun and easy you may want to paint it on mugs, salad plates or anything else that strikes your funny bone!

 

Here’s how to do it in ten easy steps: 

1)      There’s no need to paint the background of your pottery it will automatically be a creamy off white color.  If you do want it to be a bright white then paint the entire background of your pottery with 3 coats of Polar Bear White paint.

2)      With a large round brush, make two big circles with Hi Ho Silver for the eyes.

3)      When the grey is dry, use the same round brush and make two circles inside the grey with Black Lab to finish the eyes. Do two to three coats to make it really solid. 

5)      Next, get out a Black Lab funwriter.

6)      With the funwriter, make the two nostrils between the eyes. Remember that with a funwriter, only one application is necessary, not three coats! Just outline the nostrils and then fill in with the funwriter. Remember to hold the funwriter at an angle, don’t scratch into the paint. The more you squeeze on the funwriter the more paint will come out.

7)      Now it’s time to make the mouth. Take the Black Lab funwriter, and beginning on the left side and moving to the right, draw a crooked smile with medium pressure. You want to have a thicker line for this.  The more pressure you apply to the funwriter the thicker your line will be.

8)      Now add the vertical/crooked “stitches” along the smile line with the funwriter.

9)      The final step is to add the funwriter detailing with the Back Lab. When adding the detailing, not too much squeezing. You want the lines to break up a little as you go. Draw around the grey eye areas, as well as making a lot of stopping and starting action as you detail the mouth!

10)  Isn’t he cute?  He looks darling on a cappacino mug as well!

Roses Made Easy

Posted on: August 16th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

One of the quickest and easiest ways to add life to any piece of pottery is with flowers. Today, we will share a couple of tricks that will make the art of roses super simple for anyone to master. You’ll be able to create this magnificent piece in no time!

Take the graphic rose first. Begin with a dab of color – it’s just a blob of paint. Red is always nice, but pink, yellow or even purple will also work well. When it is dry, use black puffy paint and in a squiggly, circular pattern, create your rose. Voila! And you thought it looked so hard.

Now how about a two dimensional rose that is anything but flat. Begin with a small “horseshoe” shape for the center. You can use a brush or a funwriter, both work well. Next, we will begin to build the flower by creating interlocking shapes that also form a circular perimeter. See the example. As the rose grow, the shapes get larger, and more free form. Add a green leaf or a stem, and before you know it, you will have a beautiful rose.

You can take the same two dimensional rose described above, and by adding a lighter color to the edges of the shapes, you can take it that one step further to create a three dimensional beauty.

Now that you know a few of the secrets, give it a try!

My Special Day

Posted on: August 6th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

            

School is about to begin and there are so many special days coming up – “first day of kindergarten” or in my case “first day of senior year” (how time flies!), “You got an A!”, “You made the team!” so why not celebrate the moment and your special student with  a Special Day Plate.  The two of you can have fun painting this together, then use it for after school treats, before practice snacks, or any other time when you want to show your child just how much they deserve a “gold star!”

Here are the simple steps to create Sample #1:

1)      Sketch out the big star with a #2 pencil.

2)      You can use a few pieces of masking tape to block off the bottom points on the rim.  Once you paint the rim you can remove the tape.

3)      With a round yellow sponge, paint the rim with two coats of your child’s favorite color. I used Light Kiwi.

4)      Remove the masking tape.

5)      Paint the big star with two coats of Bright Saffron.

6)      As the star dries, make the polka dots around the rim by using the eraser end of a #2 pencil dipped in a complementary color. I used Bright Caribbean.

7)      You can dip the eraser each time for a perfect dot each time, or make two dots before dipping in paint again for a more whimsical look of uneven dots.

8)      Use Dark Butternut funwriter or any other color you like for details on the inside of the star.

9)      Add starburst designs to the background with a Light Blue Spruce funwriter.

10)  The finishing touch to this cute piece is when it is personalized with your child’s name and of course, the “It’s my special day” message across the top.

The same basic steps can be changed up to accommodate any piece of pottery. The coupe plate (shown in sample #2) eliminates the rim, but makes the star much larger. Instead of painting the star a solid color, use the funwriter to “scribble” the paint inside the star. Have fun experimenting and letting your child be the leader.

Just Keep Swimmin’

Posted on: July 11th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

All of our hot, sticky, dusty weather lately is sending us dreaming of the sea and cooler places.  If you can’t go to the sea we figured you might as well paint it!  This darling fish plate is so easy to paint, even your child can do it!  

1)      Sketch out the big fish. Use a number 2 pencil -  the pencil marks will disapear once it’s fired.  Start with a big circle.

2)      Bring one side of the circle in towards the center so the lip sticks out, and add the top fin, and the tail.

3)      Now that you have your fish shape, it’s time to paint.

4)      Start with whatever light green you like. I used Light Kiwi. With a large round brush, paint one or two coats in all directions. You want to see the brush strokes, it adds to the fun.

5)      With a darker green, I used Dark Wintergreen, and a smaller brush, paint both fins and the swirls for the gills.

6)      The background is painted with Light Aqua and lots of water on your brush. Dip the brush in water first, then the paint, and then just swish your brush onto the plate around your fish.

7)      Add bubbles with Light Aqua.

8)      Make two circles for the eyes with Really White.  Make sure to do 2-3 coats so they show up.

9)      Add some pattern to your fish with dots in a medium green. I used Bright Kiwi.  You can just use the wrong end of your paint brush or a pencil eraser and dip it in paint and then on your piece and you will get perfect polka dots.

10)  When your fish and all the parts are dry, add the final details by outlining with a Black funwriter.

When you are done, your fish will be so cute that you’ll want to paint a whole school of them. Salad plates make a perfect accompaniment as do the coupe chargers! Have fun and Happy Swimming!

Thea’s Tips and Tricks

Posted on: June 28th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

Our custom painter Thea not only does our custom painting and samples but she also designs all of our classes.  She is a wealth of pottery painting information and we asked her to give us tips and tricks of the trade!  Her first one, involves a pencil and a couple of lines!

Many times, we hear the comment “Oh, I could never do that” when someone is looking at one of our sample pieces and our answer is almost always “It’s easier then you think!”  One way to make it easy is to simply break down the design into pieces.

Let me show you an easy way to tackle a large, complicated piece with outstanding results. Take this Old Time Cookie Jar. I wanted to have lots of different images on the piece, so that I could feature all kinds of dogs, lots of colors, and even a few names.

Begin by splitting the jar in half horizontally with a regular #2 pencil, and then do the same thing only going in a vertical direction. Since this particular piece is rather round, I divided it a second time vertically so that I had more even sized spaces. We now have several small areas to paint instead of one intimidating and very daunting large piece of pottery.

Mix up the design. Use pure color in some spaces, then maybe patterns in others. If you have a main image in mind, use the #2 pencil to sketch it in first, and then work out from there. Remember that the #2 pencil completely burns off in the kiln, so feel free to experiment until you are ready to paint. You can even write in each square what you want to paint there! Once you have it broken down into small spaces, you will be surprised at how easy it is and how cute the end result will be!

Paint inside the box!

Posted on: April 22nd, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

Now most of the time we are extolling the virtures of painting outside the box and embracing all those creative juices!  But this week’s Pottery Painting 101 tip shows us that painting inside the box or coloring inside the lines can help those of us who aren’t necessarrily the type of artist that can whip something out off the tip of our brushes!  This week’s tip comes from our Ahwatukee manager, Cynthia.  Enjoy!

Have you ever wanted to go paint at As You Wish, but worried that you would get there and not be able to come up with an idea? Have you ever come in to paint and ended up walking around for half an hour trying to figure out what you want to do?  Have you ever come in with your kids or friends and decided not to paint because “you don’t have an artistic bone in your body?”  Well, we have a fantastic solution to all of those problems!  The Tissue Paper/Sharpie Trick!!

If you find an image you like in one of our idea books or on one of our samples, you can put that image on your pottery even if you can’t freehand (like me!)  Here is all it takes!

*You put tissue paper, the cheap stuff you wrap gifts in, down on the image you want to transfer. 

*You trace it with a pencil.

*You put your tissue paper down on your pottery and go over the pencil with a sharpie. The sharpie will bleed through the tissue paper onto your pottery so you can paint inside the lines, and the sharpie will burn out in the kiln!!

And voila! From there, all you have to do is paint your image!  If it’s tiny detail work, you can literally just paint with our Funwriters, which are just our normal paint poured into smaller squeeze bottles so you can use them like a pen.  Funwriters come out as 3 coats so you only have to use them once to get solid coverage!

I tell our amazing customers in Ahwatukee this incredible trick and I watch the light bulb go off in their head and I see the smile brighten on their face as they begin to understand the world of possibilities now open to them!  This trick lets you come in with your idea prepared and you tissue paper already traced.  I Google things like line-art, clip art, drawings and images of things I like and do the first tracing at home.

It is so very simple! This wonderful trick lets you look like you can freehand! It lets you put just about anything onto your pottery and end up with a masterpiece!  So, don’t get caught up in all the worry, hesitation and self-doubt!  Even YOU can paint like Picasso!!

Pottery Painting 101 – Love Bug Flower Pot

Posted on: February 8th, 2011 by As You Wish No Comments

Each month we will feature a simple pottery painting project that you can complete in 10 easy steps or less!  For those of you out there that are scared silly by paint and brushes, or those that need a little creative inspiration than Pottery Painting 101 is your destination each month.  Enjoy!

This month we are featuring an adorable Valentine’s gift you can make with your little ones.  Bring your little love bug into As You Wish and make a special flower pot for the person you adore this Valentines season! It’s easy to dance their fingerprints through paint to make these love bugs to decorate the perfect gift for a teacher, a parent, or even a grandparent! They will be so honored to receive a special gift made with Love! 

 

 1.  Ladybug Body - Using the large sponge on a stick make pink circles at various spots around the flower pot.  Just dip the sponge in paint and press it lightly on the flower pot.

 2.  Ladybug Wings - Once the pink is dry, brush some red on your child’s thumb and make two thumbprints on top of the pink circles to make an upside down V shape.

 3. Ladybug Head - Use the small sponge on a stick to make the ladybug’s head.  Just dip the sponge in black paint and press it lightly on the flower pot at the top of the pink circles to make the shape of the head.

 4.  Stripes – use a wide square brush and make a single brush stroke in intervals around the rim of the flower pot to create your stripes.

 5.  Details of Ladybug – Using a black funwriter, draw the antennas onto the ladybugs head.  Then make a rough circle around each ladybug’s body.  Remember, look at the picture, the circles are not exact.  Lastly, place a few black dots on the ladybugs body.

 6.  Details of Rim – Still using a black funwriter, outline the vertical sides of each red stripe.  Again it doesn’t have to be exact.  Then if you like add a wavy line across the bottom of the rim.

 7.  Polka Dots on Rim – these are created by dipping the wrong end of a paint brush, a qtip, or the eraser head of a pencil into black paint and placing it on the rim of the flower pot.

 8.  Saucer – we used a light pink.  Take a fan brush and dip it in clean water, place it directly into your paint so it is a little watery and mix it up, add a few more drops of water if you like, this makes the paint more translucent.  Make large brushstrokes all over the inside and outside of the saucer until covered.  If you need to add more water do so.

 9.  Dots on Saucer – using the same technique as you did for the Polka Dots on Rim.  Dot the saucer with red and medium pink dots as desired.

 10.  Writing on Rim – using the black puffy paint, write your preferred wording on the rim.  If you are uncomfortable free handing it with the puffy paint, you can pencil it on first with #2 pencil.  Just be very careful to sketch on top of the paint with the pencil, if you make grooves in the paint with the pencil, the pencil lead mark will go away once it is fired but you will still see the grooves.

That’s it you have a lovely Love Bug gift for Valentine’s in 10 easy steps!