You Can Folk It!: Paint your own folky Polar Bear

Thursday 8 November 2018

Paint your own folky Polar Bear

A dark hand painted plaque painted with a polar bear and snowflakes. The handwritten quote on the plaque says 'Dream Big little one' and is threaded with silver ribbon to hang on a door.

Following the success of our Folky Fox recently, we have gone from Autumn to Winter with this brand new tutorial.

To complete this level 2 tutorial, you will need:

A rectangular plaque (portrait)

DecoArt Chalky Finish paint in Honor

Sandpaper, tracing paper* and transfer paper*

Sponge*

Dotting tool*, Flat Brush* & Liner brush*

DecoArt Titanium (Snow) white* (or any white you have), Lamp Black and Antique Rose*

DecoArt Dazzling Metallics in Shimmering Silver

Sakura Gelly Roll pen in White

Practice paper*

Flat Brush Rosebuds kit

DecoArt Metallic lustre in Silver Spark

*All included in our Flat Brush Starter kit

Practice paper, paintbrushes, DecoArt Metallic Lustre and the polar bear traced pattern from You Can Folk It

Preparing your plaque:

Using the sponge, base coat the plaque using the Honor chalky finish paint. You can speed this process up with a hair dryer if you like.

After applying a couple of coats, lightly sand the MDF plaque before transferring your design on to the surface.

A photo showing DecoArt Americana Acrylic in Warm white and practice rows of C strokes painted using the Flat brush in the picture

Practicing your brushstrokes:

For the Polar Bear you will need to practice the C stroke taught in the Rosebuds kit. When you are confident painting single ones, practice painting each one side by side in rows.

Painting your polar bear:

Using the warm white and flat brush, base coat the whole of the polar bear. Using the Antique Rose, paint the inner part of the bears ears. When this is dry, paint rows of c strokes over the whole of the bears body starting at the top and working down, leave to dry. Take care to try to overlap the rows a little to create your fur pattern.

Next, using your liner brush and the black paint, add his eyes and nose.

A photo of the completed dark blue rectangular wooden plaque painted with a polar bear and decorated with snowflakes. The phrase 'Dream Big Little One' is hand written across the top

Final touches:

Using the silver paint and Dotting tool, add dotty snowflakes on the plaque. Leave to dry. If you wish to add the lettering, use the Gelly Roll pen (or a fine Uni Posca paint pen) to copy over the transferred lettering. You may need to keep wiping the tip of the pen with a tissue to make sure the tip does not get clogged with paint. Finally, using the sponge, add the Metallic lustre around the edges of the plaque and add some ribbon to hang.

If you did not wish to add the writing we have provided why not stamp a name on to personalise or just add more dotty snowflakes.

Happy Folking x