Craft Night: Khokhloma

This week's craft night had to be a little early. We got together to try out some art inspired by Khokhloma, a traditional style of Russian bowl painting.

This is what you will make:

You will need:

• Gouache paint in Red, Black and Green. 
• Mixing palette (plastic wells are good, it will get runny)
• Gold card (I use super gold 250gsm. It should be sparkly but not glittery)
• a small water dish
• 3 brushes
• super-fine
• fine
• medium
• Some paper towels (to wipe your brush and hands)
• Newspaper (to lay under your paint area)

Instructions:

To make this fun for people who aren't keen on creating a pattern themselves, you can print this design file* I made onto the gold card. Be careful not to jam your printer. You can get 4 of these onto a page, this will be small enough for a 2-3 hour project.

The printed images should be very faint on your gold card. This is to ensure if you go outside the lines or change the design, you won't be able to see the ink of where the lines should be.

You will also want to print a copy of this colour scheme, which will also help you distinguish all the curves:

Add a little bit of gouache onto your palette and using your fine paint brush, add a few drops of water and mix it in. You are aiming for the consistency of ink.

Start by painting the black around the outside. This also gives you a feel for the paint and the texture. you don't need to go on too thick, but the paint should not be beading either, it should dry like satin/velvet.

Once you are finished with the black, paint in the red and green details.

Final Product:

*The design files provided are given as-is with a Creative Commons NC licence. This means you can use this for your own craft groups for fun and you don't need to credit me, but you can't sell it.