Beautiful Ballerinas

The Challenge:

It's really hard to find original children's artwork these days that doesn't say "Drama Queen" or "Diva" on it. If you're anything like me, you'd probably prefer your child NOT behave like a diva or drama queen (at least not in front of company) and therefore find it very frustrating to find just the right artwork that is unique to your child and his or her interests.

Recently, my husband and I moved our daughter into her big-girl room and I started looking for artwork that would be age-appropriate for a three-year-old, yet grow with her for at least a few more years. Right now she's really into ballerinas and that's the motif I wanted to go with for her new big-girl room. However, anyone with children knows that her interest could change tomorrow, so I didn't want to make a huge investment in case I have to change it all to soccer balls next month.

I didn't want my artwork to look overly precious, and ballerina posters seemed too generic. What I really liked was some watercolors of ballerinas that I saw in a flea market once. They had a neat kind of retro look about them, but of course, I didn't buy when I had the chance. (Reverse Buyer's Remorse! I'm still kicking myself for that one.) So, what was my Plan B?

The Solution:

Clipart! Can I just say? I love Clipart. It's copyright free (emphasis on the word, "FREE") and there's an image out there for just about anything you want to search for...including photography and other color images.

Because I was going for a sort of retro 1950's artwork, I used the Clips Online application and downloaded two black and white images of ballerinas. I enlarged them to fit onto an 8-1/2" x 11" piece of paper designed especially for watercolors.

After that, it was as simple as filling in the images with the colors I wanted. It was easy and very inexpensive. I didn't even use artist-quality watercolors. I used my daughter's Barbie paints.

To frame, I bought standard picture frames, painted them to be the color I wanted and had mattes cut to fit. (All artwork looks more expensive with a matte around it. I don't know why...it just does.) In this case, I thought at oval cut-out framing the picture seemed more feminine which was exactly what I was going for, but you can have mattes cut anyway you want.

Here is the finished product...





The Breakdown:

The frames are from Hobby Lobby. They cost approximately $15 a piece. They were originally brownish-gold, but I painted them white then lightly added a touch of pink paint to the swirls for added femininity.

The mattes were custom cut at Hobby Lobby: $6 a piece

The ballerinas are printed on paper specifically for watercolors. You can buy a tablet at either Hobby Lobby or Michael's.

Paint: Barbie. Seriously.

Total Cost for Original Artwork: Less than $25 a piece.

Estimated Completion Time: Approximately 3-1/2 hours. (Includes painting the frames)
Degree of Difficulty: On a scale of 1 to 5--one being very easy and five being think about this one before you try it--I'd give it a two-and-a-half.