Painted Stones ... What you need:
Gesso - any brand will do.
Liquid Acrylic Paint (I use Daler Rowney Acrylic Artists Ink - comes in lots of colours)
Three brushes I like to use are: for painting thin lines and making dots I use a 10/0 and a 5/0 Robert A Wade NEEF 970 Taklon Round. I also use a general flat 6 or 8 for painting the gesso on with.
A dish to put your ink into (Note: you only need a very little amount of ink/paint)
Some paper towels.
A water dish
Smooth clean River stones (I wash mine in warm soapy water and scrub them with a green scourer, any slightly abrasive wash cloth will do. This allows the gesso to get a better grip and some purchased river stones have a wax coating on them)
How to start. I use the Gesso straight from the lid - it is thick and you don't need very much. Using your flat brush pain a layer of gesso onto the top half of the stone. Let it dry.
Paint a second layer of gesso, ensuring you paint to the edge line nice and smoothly.
You can use Zentangle patterns, crochet patterns, even quilt blocks, embroidery patterns or anything you can think of to be inspired by. Less is often more when it comes to painting stones, but let your imagination take over :)
Once you have painted them, let them dry and give them a spray with either a gloss or matt craft spray sealer.
Happy Stone Painting ... Jane
