Colorful Painted Rocks: Making Things Bright
Using color can be intimidating. Think about your wardrobe for example. It is easy to get stuck in a rut and wear the same color over and over. I seem to wear black a lot and shy away from bright colors. But when it comes to painting rocks, you can let your imagination run wild. Grab that color of paint marker that you have never used before and let’s see what we can create.
For this colorful painted rocks project, I am going to start with a simple pattern and then show you a more complicated color blocking pattern.
Choosing & Priming Your Rocks
Rocks are pretty easy to come across. Sometimes, you can find them in your own yard or on a stroll through the park. You can find them at craft stores, home improvement stores, landscaping companies, or even order them online. The ones that I am using for this project were purchased at Hobby Lobby. I found them in the mosaics section.
The two rocks I chose for this colorful painted rocks project were about 2 to 3 inches tall and had a flat surface. I put a primer coat of paint on both of the rocks before starting with the designs. A primer coat helps to fill in holes, it provides coverage when your rock is a darker color and will help the paint adhere to the rock better.
Here is some more information on priming rocks if you would like to read further.
How to prepare rocks for rock painting?
The majority of this project is done with paint markers. Paint markers are a great way to apply paint with precision. They also dry quickly so you can move from color to color and not have as much wait time. If you are new to using paint markers, please see this article to read further. https://rockrembrandt.com/8-paint-pens-for-rock-painting/
Supply List for Colorful Painted Rocks
• Smooth, flat Rocks
• Acrylic paint pens: assorted colors and widths
• Acrylic paint: white
• Acrylic sealer: spray or paint on
• Paintbrushes
• Other supplies: table cloth, paper plate, pencil
Colorful Painted Rocks Design 1: Multi-Colored Feather
The first step for this colorful painted rock is to apply the white primer coat. I used two coats of paint and let them dry completely before moving on. Then, I used a pencil to draw the feather design. I purposely did not line up the two sides of the feather. This will add to more color contrast.
I chose six colors for this palette. I went with bright shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. When applying the color with your paint marker, be sure that you are putting the color where it will touch itself on the other side.
I started with the red and colored in three sections, spacing them out on both sides.
Then, I added in some orange. Space them out so you do not have orange on the left side touching orange on the right side.
OK, let’s keep it going. I moved forward adding blue and green. Keep them spread out, so the colors are not touching across the middle.
Finally, I filled in the remaining areas with purple and yellow.
Once this was all dry, I added some shading using lighter shades of paint. I used white for the yellow sections. Inside each section, I drew a centerline and a line of shading dots.
To finish this colorful painted rock, I outlined all of the sections with a black paint marker.
Colorful Painted Rocks Design 2: Color-blocked Bird
Let’s step this up a notch and try something a little more difficult. This pattern has smaller color blocking and contrasting vertical stripes. I started by painting a primer coat of white on the rock. I used two coats of paint and let them dry completely in between. Then I drew a simple bird outline.
I decided to leave the bird’s head plain brown since we were going to have a lot of color on the body of the bird. I lightly sketched in vertical lines on the wing and colored each section a different color. I stuck with the bright color palette.
I added in the bird’s eye and beak and drew in the color blocking pattern on the bird’s body. It looked a lot like a brick wall.
Then I started filling in the color. The idea here is to go one color at a time. You want to make sure that you don’t have the same color touching. This also applies to the wing and the tail. For example, I will avoid using red at the top of the body toward the right; I have red in the wing there. Here is the bird after adding red and yellow.
Keep going on the pattern. Here I have added green and blue.
The remaining sections were colored in using purple. The tail pattern was a little more difficult, there were several colors to avoid in different sections.
To finish the bird, I added some highlight lines with white and outlined the different sections with a black paint marker.
Colorful Painted Rocks – Sealing the Rocks
I decided to seal the Colorful Pattered rocks using a spray acrylic sealer from ModPodge. I made sure to do this step outside. Spray sealer can give off some strong fumes and you don’t want to have that linger inside the house. I set the rocks on a protective surface so I didn’t get the sealer everywhere. Using a paper plate or plastic table cloth works perfectly for this step. I sprayed a light coat of sealer and let it dry. Be sure to follow the package instructions on your sealer.
Man, these colorful painted rocks are bright and, certainly, colorful. They would make great gifts to cheer someone up or would be great to hide in a park or on a walking trail. Where are places that you like to hide rocks?
Top Take-Aways for my Colorful Painted Rocks
1. Don’t be afraid to use a lot of color on your rocks. Is there a paint marker or a bottle of paint that you have never opened? Base your next project around that color.
2. It is easiest to go one color at a time; you can always go back and fill in additional areas if you need to.
3. Make use of a different shade of the same color to add some highlights and depth to your colorful painted rocks.
Inspiration
For further inspiration, check out these links to other great Colorful painted rocks.
Michelle has a great example of a color-blocked tribal character.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/678495500090637874/
These rocks are available on Esty, but they are a wonderful example of use of color.
Boho design painted rocks · Set of 3
Laura at Crazy Laura has some very colorful and beautiful rocks to share.
https://www.crazylaura.com/best-painted-rock-ideas/
Happy colorful painting!