Make: Inspired by Laura Blythman

I was introduced to Laura Blythman's work some time ago, when I was browsing Apartment Therapy's feature on her lovely home. I love her use of bright colours, and the layering of cut-outs in her work, and thought we might try making an art piece inspired by her style for my dad's birthday present.

So I cut up a piece of watercolour paper into smaller pieces, and Junior J got busy painting them with different colours. (A side point, DAISO sells watercolour palettes, and they are great for kids! Plenty of different shades, plus no fretting that they mess up the cakes since its only $2.)

We tried streaking darker shades of colours on the papers while the underlying coat was still wet, which let the colours blend nicely together. He also tried to make splotches on the papers, saying they would be the "rocks on the mountains". We then cut out the pieces of paper into the shape of hills, and used a circle punch to cut out a sun. I helped Junior J to print out an accompanying verse from Psalm 121, and we shuffled everything around until we had a nice layout, then pasted everything down. We then framed it up using a frame from IKEA.

I loved how it turned out, and I think my dad was rather pleased with his present. This technique is pretty simple and rather mess-free, so I think we'll be doing more of this in time to come!