Art Lab, Episode #4: Rainbow Puzzles

| Allison

*Announcer’s voice* Hello, and welcome to the fourth episode of Art Lab! XD

If you recall (and even if you don’t), Hayley and I are doing a collaborative series called The Art Lab wherein we hope to inspire you to make fun and beautiful art. 😉 Click on Hayley’s name up there to visit her blog and see her beautiful entries and other lovely posts!

Recently I’ve been having fun arranging simple rainbow patterns in interesting ways. This is pretty much no-fail art. As long as you can wield a marker and a pair of scissors without dying yourself blue or hacking off a finger, you’re in good shape. XD

Word Prompt: Rainbow

Rainbow is kind of boring, and unoriginal, right? Wrong! Here is how to spruce up a plain rainbow drawing (or any drawing, really):

Start by covering your paper in rainbow stripes, splotches, swirls, or pretty much any pattern you can think of. Here is a pattern I drew: (Note: Your pattern can be super simple – plain rainbow stripes work wonderfully.)

004 (1280x960) (2)
The colors were brighter in real life. 😦 Bad camera! (Or maybe just bad photographer. XD)

 

Now, cut it up! (Although if you really like your art so far, you should save it and make another piece to cut up.) You may cut it up into nice even strips, but it’s much more fun to go wild. Cut it up into big pieces and small pieces, jagged and smooth, circles and stripes. Now place your “puzzle pieces” on a paper, but leave spaces between each of them. This is what makes it neat. The white space distorts your picture while still letting the pretty design show through. Like so…

For this one I cut a circle from the above design, then hacked it to pieces and re-glued it onto an ATC with spaces between each of the jigsaw pieces. The circle spread into a sort of Easter-eggish shape.

005 (1280x960) (3)

This one started as a simple rainbow-striped square. You can see how all of the pieces fit back together.

002 (1280x960)

The background of the next one came from a marker-testing swatch. 😀 It makes things more interesting if you cut out shapes, like I did with the circle here. Just make sure that the inner circle is small enough to be glued on with space to spare.

001 (1280x960)

Oh, and I almost forgot: rainbow stripes make bright and fun envelope art too, especially if you have several different shades of each color:

rainbow envelope (1280x960)

So there you are! A simple way to make beautiful art. Now break out those rainbow markers, colored pencils, or watercolors, and get drawing!

***Allison***

28 thoughts on “Art Lab, Episode #4: Rainbow Puzzles”

  6. Pingback: ATC trade {{ Details / Rules }} – Flourishing by Restful Falls

          1. Unfortunately, though I’d love to, I’m not allowed to. 😦 I’m trading with Allison because I already have her address. 🙂 Maybe I can someday, though! It’s an awesome idea. 😀

            -Clara ❤

            Like

            Reply

            1. oh ok!! Well your parents know that it would only be me that would have you address, right? Just making sure if you were confused :). Maybe in later trades in a couple years you’ll be able to join in on the trade :D.

              Liked by 1 person

              Reply

  10. THIS IS SO COLORFUL, I love it so much! Thehe puzzle idea is so creative! I’m gonna try it out now ;). But my favorite is by far the envelope =D. And man was I excited when I got it in the mail! You worked really hard on it, and it definitely showed :).

    Like

    Reply

    1. Thanks so very much, Hayley! Aww, really? I’m glad you liked the envelope. 🙂 I think it’s pretty, but’s it’s also pretty un-original. 😉 But the letter took so long that I made a slightly shorter envelope than normal. 😀

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
  11. Pingback: All my ATC’s! – Girls Mania

Your comments make my day! Please keep them clean and respectful so everyone can enjoy this blog. :) Thank you!