Take out your brushes! It’s time to learn how to paint easter eggs! 🙂 This time, we are painting dots. A LOT of dots. It’s so easy, everybody can do it. And it looks so amazing!
Find a speed painting video of this craft at the end of this entry.
Materials needed:
a blown out egg
bamboo skewers (available here*)
paint – acrylic paint (available here*) or tempera paint (available here*)
brushes – a big, soft flat brush (available here*) and a fine brush (available here*)
Read last week’s entry to get all the basic infos on painting easter eggs: >> How to paint Easter Eggs – Tips and Tricks
Put your blown out egg on a bambo skewers (available here*) and apply a black base color. You can use acrylic paint (available here*) thinned out with a little water.
Use a big, soft flat brush (available here*) and apply the paint with gentle downward strokes. If the bristles of the brush are too sturdy, the paint can get streaky. Let the paint dry completely before you continue on.
Once the base color has dried, you can draw a simple grid on the egg. The grid will help you later to center your pattern and keep it from getting wonky.
If you need help with the grid or want to know what tools you can use to get straight lines, check out this entry: >> How to paint Easter Eggs – Tips and Tricks
Now to the colors! Acrylic paint (available here*) works really well for easter eggs, but you can choose whatever you prefer.
For a color gradient like this, you need three colors. A base color (I used a strong purple), a white color (to lighten) and a darker color that harmonizes with the base color. (I chose ultramarine)
The base color sets the color scheme. Use a little palette or plate to mix the colors. Fill 5 compartments of the palette with your base color. Leave one compartment like it is. Lighten two compartments with your white (one a bit more than the other, of course) and mix the other two with the darker color. You should have 5 harmonizing shades now. This should be enough for your color gradient.
Paint two rows of dots with every shade.
How to paint easter eggs – color gradient with dot painting
Now it’s time to start painting! Use a fine brush (available here*) to apply the paint. The bristle of your brush should form a very fine, pointy tip to paint nice details.
Load up your base color! Start on the horizontal center line of your brush and paint small dots all around. Leave just a little bit of space between the dots.
This is the widest part of the egg. It is important to remember that, because from now on all the dots will get smaller with each following row. Don’t start with dots that are too small. Mine are about 0.2″, but you can make them bigger if you want.
“Why are my dots always so wonky?”
I get this kind of question a lot. There are two common mistakes people make. You can avoid both very easily.
Mistake #1: Maybe you use the wrong brush. The best brush for dot painting is very fine. It should have synthetic, firm bristles and a fine tip. (available here*) If the bristles of your brush are too soft, or if your brush doesn’t have a nice tip when it’s dry, it will be very hard to paint small details like that.
Mistake #2: Your paint is too thick. If your dot’s just won’t get a smooth, round shape then your paint is most likely too paste-like. Mix it with a little bit of water. The paint should form the round dot almost on its own when you apply it. Spread the paint with a small circular motion until your dot has the desired size.
And the rest is just practice. I promise, it will get easier with every dot! 🙂
For the second row of dots, you still use your base color. Place the dots between the dots of the previous row.
For the third round, you need to switch to a lighter shade. Paint two rows of dots with that shade. Keep an eye on the grid to ensure that your pattern won’t get crooked.
With every row, the dots should get a little smaller.
Use the lightest shade for the last two rows. The dots need to be pretty small now, or you will run out of space.
Paint the tip of the egg with the lightest shade and let it dry completely.
Now you can do the bottom half of the egg. Start with the color that is one shade darker than your base color.
Switch every two rows to a deeper shade, and don’t forget to decrease the size of your dots.
Use the darkest shade to paint the bottom of the egg and let it dry.
Now your egg should look a little bit like that. You can stop here, or add some more details.
For those who still can’t get enough: Find your finest brush and the white paint!
Make little, white dots in all the spaces between the bigger dots. To be exact: The little space where three dots meet. The white dots of a row will form a little zig-zag line.
This will create a really cool geometric mosaic effect, that ties the whole pattern together.
And that’s it! You can apply a layer of clear acrylic spray paint (*available here) if you want.
Experiment with different colors and gradients for cool results.
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Beautiful!!!