February 12, 2019

Painting on Slate

My interest in painting slate goes back to when I was a kid in Girl Scouts.  Actually, a big chunk of my love of crafting, as well as my love of the outdoors, comes from my experience in Girl Scouts.  I first joined Scouts in first grade and I continued into college, at that point being the adult leading workshops for younger girls.  

painting of dragonfly and lotus flowerAbout five years after graduating college, I was redoing the yard of the house I was living in at the time, and I remembered that my parents had a stack of old slate shingles in their shed from past Girl Scout folk art projects. I used some of that slate to create stepping stones for the garden and painted some ivy designs on them.  It was then that I decided to once again recycle the slate shingle for hand-painted art. Instead of traditional ‘folk art’ designs, I chose to paint in my own style; colorful butterflies, flowers, & garden designs.

The design for each piece of miniature art is determined by the shape of the slate.  Larger pieces become wall-hangings featuring flowers or winter scenes. Smaller pieces become novelty magnets, little pieces of fridge art. Most recently I completed a series of four slate magnets.  The largest is roughly 2" x 1.5". The smallest is about the size of a quarter. Below is the series of steps of my slate painting.

After washing & drying, each slate gets a solid color background.

Some ideas come quicker than others...

or I get in a certain creative flow.

I use images of real butterflies when painting. 
Currently, slate magnets are for sale in my Etsy shop Snowywinds Studios.
Wall-hangings are currently only available at in-person events.  
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Until next time,
~Stacey

*All photos taken and owned by me 



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