Last November I painted a couple of rocks with poppies on them for Remembrance Sunday so this year I thought it would be nice to make a whole batch of them to hide for people to find.
I started off by giving each rock a base coat of white paint using an Artline poster marker so my designs would stand out and look more vibrant than if I had been drawing on top of the natural grey stone colour.
| Rocks with their base coat |
Once the white coat was dry I started to draw and paint on the rocks using more poster markers and a selection of Artline 853 OHP markers. I also used a purple Supreme highlighter on one of my rocks and a red calligraphy pen on a couple too.
| Drawing a poppy |
On the smaller stones I kept the designs simple, drawing one poppy on each with the OHP pens.
| Small poppy rock & the pens used to make it |
| Two more small rocks & the pens used |
My husband suggested I make one of the poppies purple to remember all the animals who were killed during war so I coloured one of the flowers in with the purple Supreme highlighter. I wrote on it "Remembering the animals of war" so people would know what it was for if they found it and weren't familiar with the purple poppy's meaning.
| Purple poppy & the pens used |
On the larger rocks I had more room to play with so I could get creative!
| Painting a poppy |
I started this one by painting a poppy...
| With the silhouette |
... and then drew a silhouette of a solider and dog so that the solider's head would make up the centre of the poppy.
| Adding the dates |
The last thing I did was to write the word "Remember" and the dates.
| Finished design & the pens used |
On the next rock I used the red poster marker to make a series of splodges and then...
| Red splodges for poppies |
... drew in the stems, leaves, flower buds and centres using the Artline 853 OHP markers.
| With stems, leaves, buds and centres |
For my Valentines day rocks I used a calligraphy pen to write on the stones so I thought I'd give that another go on a couple of the poppy rocks.
| Calligraphy pen rock - Remember them |
I also drew two poppies on the first stone and a boarder of poppies on the second one.
| Another calligraphy pen rock - Lest we forget... |
I painted a couple of drooping poppies on this rock, again using the red poster marker and then used the OHP pens for the stems and middle of one of the flowers.
| Drooping poppies & quote rock |
I saw this design on Pinterest and wanted to give it a go. It is a battlefield cross for a fallen solider which is made up of a pair of boots, a gun and helmet.
| Battlefield cross & poppies |
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae is a poem that really stuck with me when I learnt about it in school so I wrote the first stanza on one of my rocks. It isn't as neat as I would have liked it to be but sometimes writing on a stone surface is a little difficult with the bumps and holes.
| In Flanders fields poem |
My eldest daughter was watching me paint these rocks and she wanted to make one too so she selected a stone and drew her own design. I love her poppy in the middle!
| My daughter's poppy rock |
Once all of the rocks were finished I used a black OHP marker to write my #ArtlineRocks message on the back of them. It tells the person who finds it that they can either keep or rehind the stone and asks them to share a photo of it online with the Artline rocks hashtag.
| The messages on the back of each rock |
Here is our finished collection of rocks! A couple of them will be travelling somewhere up north and a few will be heading down south too, the rest will be hidden around Birmingham over the next few days...
| The finished set |
... in fact we're already started hiding some!
| Starting to hide the rocks |
I hope these rocks are all found at least once before Sunday and I would love to see them popping up online too so I can see where they end up!
If you want to read more of my rock painting posts you can find them here.
Thanks for stopping by!