Painting Vintage Bells With Acrylic Paint

(This post contains affiliate links.)

I love the vintage bells that I’ve been seeing in home decor everywhere these days. They are so beautiful and shabby! After a little Pinterest session today I was inspired to try to paint a holiday swag with a big red bow and some vintage Christmas bells using my palette knife, paintbrushes, and heavy body acrylic paints. This time-lapse video gives you a little peek into my process and how I experimented with this idea. I will link all of the supplies I used on this piece below!

This isn’t a painting tutorial, but I will give you a few tips to go along with this inspirational video.

  • I began with a penciled-in sketch covered by a wash of raw umber. I almost always begin with a wash of color.
  • I played with the greenery using my knife and brushes to get a rustic and painterly look.
  • The red bow is painted with a warm and cool red to create depth.
  • Notice that I created layer after layer after layer to build up the painting.

 

Links to supplies used:

  1. My sketchbook is a Stilman and Birn Alpha. It’s small but opens flat and has great heavy paper. You can find it here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3P32xZo
  2. The paint brushes that I love most are Royal and Langnickel longhandled all media brushes. I buy mine at Walmart. I don’t have an affiliate account with them, but you can find the brush set here: Brushes
  3. Your palette knife doesn’t have to look just like mine to get the same results. You just need one with a flat edge. I bought mine at Michael’s but many people have had trouble finding one just like it. This one on Amazon is very similar to mine: https://amzn.to/3ZYzSed
  4. I use heavy body acrylic paint and my favorite brand is Liquitex. For this painting, I used these colors: titanium white, cerulean blue, naphthol crimson, alizarin crimson, raw umber, mars black, burnt umber, and cadmium yellow  You can find this type of paint here on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4iJaWOY

 

Hope you find this inspiring and that it motivates you to grab some paint and create something beautiful today!

Happy Painting,

Amanda