Tree Wall Art {Tutorial}

We have a wall air conditioner in our bed room. It lets in a draft during the cooler months. So my hubby made a cover for the inside to make it more weather proof. We decide to make it a piece of art since it will be hanging on our wall for half the year.

Here is what I did:
I used Dutch Boy Lamb's Wool Pant (It is a warm white color), My Purdy Brush and my Rockler Bench Cookies with Cones to paint over my surface to give me a nice canvas.

I wanted to have a mat look so, I marked off my lines with painter's tape.

To help seal out the other color from getting under the painter's tape I painted over the edges of the tape with my background paint.

To create my art I poured my green color (the same color as the wall) on a plate along with some white.  I then created an Ombre` effect by gradually added white to the green as I worked my way down the side.  I also wanted the texture of the circles so I used thick amounts of paint and swirled the brush.

I did the same thing with the inside rectangle.

To create the tree I used Elmer's Painter's Markers.  The markers give me more control.  I made a sketch of what I wanted the tree to look like on paper first and used it as I drew on the tree on.  I free-handed the tree.  First I drew in the branches

Then, I drew in the leaves (in orange) and acorns (in yellow).

I wanted to make the inside rectangle more contrasting to the mat so I decided to put some stain over the top of that part to make it look darker.  I taped paper towels around the edge so that no stain would get on the out side edge.

I created my stain with paint in water (75% water, 25% paint)I brushed it on the stain.Then I wiped it off with a paper towel.I repeated until I liked the color.

I took off the paper towels and let the paint dry.

I used a razor blade to cut around the edge of the painter's tape to get a clean edge.

Here it is hanging up on the wall.