Painting a Decorative Notice Board Using Blackboard Paint

When you have two children in a household, it is simply impossible to make a gift for one and leave the other empty-handed. This is how I knew that painting writing board for my nephew would put me in debt with his sister. I wanted to make something similar, but aimed at her developmental level. It occurred to me that a notice board would be a great idea. She could simply use it as a chalkboard until she was old enough to use it for its intended purpose. The trick would be to get it to fit in with her Princess Sofia themed bedroom. I knew just what to do.

The first step was to gather what was needed. I would use Dala's full range of Blackboard Paints, a variety of brushes, and water to clean the brushes in. I would be painting on BIMM board, which is white on one side and black on the reverse. I want to apologize in advance for the poor photo quality in this blog. It was night and too cold to work in the studio. My niece had come over for a sleepover and we worked by the kitchen's artificial light. The camera's flash tended to over-expose the photos and left bright spots on most of the photos.

I decided upon the white side for my project and painted the whole board Light Grey.

I then used a large Filbert brush to paint Green dots on the board. Simply press the bristles down and twist the brush in a full circle.

I used a medium flat brush to paint Black circles in the centers of the Green ones.

I returned to the large Filbert brush. This brush is damaged and old and the bristles split in the middle. I would use this to my advantage.

I dipped the tips of the brush in Pink and lighly touched it to the board, sweeping out and up away from the circles. This gave me these uneven flower petals.

I repeated this with three of my six flowers.

I then used the medium flat brush and Maroon to paint half circles all around the remaining 3 flowers to imitate petals.

My idea was starting to take shape.

I now needed a shade that married the two petal colours. I achieved this by mixing the two colours, Pink and Maroon together.

See what a lovely colour I get from this!

I added shadows to my original flowers repeating the same technique.

I swapped to an even smaller flat brush and added depth to my other flowers with the newly mixed colour.

Progress photo. I would need to fill up the mundane background.

Tiny Light Blue dots in groups of three were scattered all over the background. I used the tip of a round brush to paint these.

A close-up view of the blue dots.

I then used the same round brush to paint the bodies, heads and antennae of two butterflies in Black.

The wings were painted in Navy, using the round brush.

The detail on the wings were painted in Pink.

More detail was added to the wings using Light Blue.

Finally I had a notice board that my little niece could put up in her bedroom. She can write or draw on this with chalk and will easily wipe clean.

Marietjie Uys (Miekie) is a published author. You can buy the books here:
You can purchase Designs By Miekie 1 here.

Jy kan Kom Ons Teken en Verf Tuinstories hier koop.
Jy kan Kom Ons Kleur Tuinstories In hier koop.
Jy kan Tuinstories hier koop.
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