09 May A Beginner’s Guide to Brushwork, Lesson #24

Come and join us for our brushwork lesson #24! This homeschool handicraft project is from the book, Brushwork Elementary Brush-Forms by Marion Hudson, and is called A Lesson on Corn and Mice. It features several corn stalks and introduces a quick and simple method to paint mice. It’s a fun lesson to do, even if you’re not too fond of mice.

In the lesson, the “corn” looks suspiciously like wheat, which bothered me more than it should. As for the mice, it was fun to see how a simple brush stroke could be the foundation of a little rodent.

Our Grid Paper

Your grid paper is probably going to be different than that in the book. I say this because I looked everywhere for grid paper that was similar to the book yet never found it. So, we settled for what we could find. I would estimate that the grid paper in the book is about 1/2″ squares. Our grid paper is twice that, with 1″ square grid paper. As well, our grid paper is probably a different size overall. Because of this, the pattern in the book does not translate well onto my 1″ grid paper, so with each lesson I am redrawing the design with a few adjustments, as you can see below.

Materials Needed

• The book, Brushwork, Elementary Brush-Forms by Marion Hudson (also available online HERE)
• 1″ absorbent grid paper
• Watercolor paints (green and brown)
• Watercolor Paintbrush, we used a Princeton Velvetouch , round size 6 or 8
• A glass of water (not used for drinking)
• A small plate for mixing paint and water
• A napkin to dry the brush

Happy Handicrafts Video: A Beginner’s Guide to Brushwork, Lesson #24

The Process

For this lesson, we used two paint colors – yellow and brown. I started with the yellow paint, and using the grid as a guide, filled in all of the corn stalks and leaves. Then I switched to the brown, without needing to clean the brush.

The mice were made with a simple brush form. I then added the ears, front and back legs, and finally the tail.

To finish the painting, I applied a very diluted brown to the corn stalks for definition and dimension.

Come Join Us!

If you’re just finding us, you can get started with our first brushwork lesson and advance according to your skill. We store all of our videos on YouTube at Happy Handicrafts. You don’t have to start with brushwork – we have paper sloyd, needle-felting, crochet, and more. Go explore and choose which playlist will be the best for you and your family! We’ll see you there!