Painting with Plasmavores

Canvas

Recommended: 16"x20" stretched canvas.

While our painting is designed for a 16x20 canvas, you are welcome to use a smaller canvas, panel canvas, or canvas pad if you choose.

If you would prefer a different surface material, such as drawing paper, we would recommend also changing the art medium you are using to create the image, such as colored pencil or chalk pastels. However, please note that the painting and instructions have been designed to utilize the fast drying time and layering abilities of acrylic paints, so choosing a different medium will provide an additional challenge.

Acrylic Paint

Recommended: Acrylic Paint in Black, White, Red, Blue, and Yellow

Our painting is designed to utilize all five colors above. However, if you would like to limit your own color palette, you could choose to use black, white, and a single additional color. If you would prefer to expand your color palette, we suggest considering the addition of a metallic color, such as silver.

The painting and instructions have been designed to utilize the fast drying time and layering abilities of acrylic paints, so choosing a different medium will provide an additional challenge. If you choose a different medium, we also recommend modifying your art surface to match.

Paint Palette

Recommended: Rigid Artist's Palette or Paper Plate

Your palette is the surface you will mix colors on. In person, we typically use two paper plates - one to hold the paint, one to mix paint on. However, any hard surface that can hold liquid paint, can be washed or thrown away when the painting is complete, and has space for mixing paints on it should suffice. Our artist's palette of choice when a rigid palette isn't available, for example, is aluminum foil with the edges turned up to contain the paint.

Paintbrushes

Recommended: 3 Paintbrushes (Large, Medium, Small)

The painting and instructions have been designed to utilize three general paintbrush sizes - you'll hear our instructions refer to a "large," "medium," and "small," brush. You are welcome to use whatever size or brush shape feels most comfortable to you, though recommend that the large is no larger than 1/2" wide (size 14), the small brush is a 1/16"-1/8" wide or so (sizes 1-3) and the medium is somewhere in between. You could also consider using a sponge in addition to the paintbrushes.

Easel

Recommended: Tabletop Easel

While easels are not required, having the means to prop your painting upright in front of you will help keep your proportions accurate and not stretched out. The easels we use in person are approximately 22" high, 16" wide, and can sit comfortably on a desk or table.

Paper Towels

Recommended: Paper Towels

To dry your brushes or clean up messes, keeping paper towels on hand is essential. However, if you would prefer to stick with a more reusable approach, consider keeping rags or drop cloths on hand.

Rinse Cup

Recommended: Plastic Cup w/Water

As we switch between paint colors, you will need some way to rinse out your paintbrushes. Any cup of water should do, just be sure that the cup is okay to have paint in it and remember that this is your paint water, not drinking water!

Protective Clothing

Recommended: Apron

Acrylic paint is very challenging to remove from clothing if it drips on you. We recommend wearing comfortable clothing that you don't mind getting paint on, as well as an apron to help protect your clothing. If you do not have access to an apron, a quick solution could be a large trash bag with holes poked through for head and arms.

Optional: LED String Lights

Recommended: String of 20 White Lights, Battery Powered

LED lights are not required to complete this painting, but if you'd like to add some shining stars to the background with LED lights our artist will show you how! If you choose to add lights, you will also need a toothpick or skewer to poke holes in the canvas and tape (we recommend clear packing tape) or glue to secure the light string. You may also want to consider an additional material to help strengthen the canvas on the backside, such as modge podge, painting gel, or a thick piece of paper that can be adhered to the back side of the canvas.

Optional: TARDIS Stencil

If you'd like to add a TARDIS, we'll walk through how to free-hand this optional fun add. Alternatively, you can print and cut out the provided stencil if you would prefer to use one to help with guide lines.

Download stencil here.

We recommend printing on a sturdy paper, such as cardstock, and cutting away all of the white space, but keep both the outside paper and the blue TARDIS itself. The outer paper can serve as a general outline of the TARDIS shape, while the inner TARDIS can help with the grid lines and individual boxes.

Interested in your TARDIS being a different size? You can scale the size of the print by changing the "custom scale" value in your printer settings.

Consider Your Environment

Sure, you can paint anywhere, but some things we recommend:

• Consider where you're painting. If you spilled paint on the floor, could it be easily cleaned? If not, do you have a drop cloth or plastic that you can put on the floor to protect it?
• Consider your lighting. Is your painting area well lit? Are you near a window? Lots of natural light is beneficial, if possible, but any well lit space will work.

Nourishment + Sense of Humor

We're here to have fun! We recommend keeping some water or other drink close at hand, snacks (this is a great opportunity to try some of the snacks from the CONSUITE!), and a great sense of humour.