Dala Horse projects

I continue working with the design tools and am painting some boxes to keep them in. The divided box in the background is going to be used to display and sell small magnets and buttons with my designs on them. Yes, that will be painted in a dala horse theme as well.

I was "playing with design ideas on this little horse and while it's cute enough it won't be included in my book or classes. This will  make a cute little gift for someone so no effort is ever wasted. Everything works somewhere.

I couldn't resist making some changes on the horse that I painted on Saturday. Everyone likes this one so it will make the project list and instruction sheet for the next Red Dala Horse class. the problem now is to remember which areas to paint first and what the best way to demonstrate the brush strokes would be. Keep reading, I'll get there...

Looking back at the very first Dala Horse that I painted

This horse was given to me by my friend Ron, the inspiration for the painting came from a letter from my friend Karen and I painted it for my Dad.

It reminds me of the whole spirit of Dala horses. People share materials and inspiration to make other people happy. No wonder people always smile when they see them

Sunny and 72 degrees in the garden

It was nice to see the end of the snow and enjoy some warm weather for a change. Here's the outdoor dining room, we spend a lot of the day here and really enjoy it.

The sun was nice too...

There are some birds in the blue birdhouse on the front of the arbor. It was fun to watch  them flying back and forth with bits of nesting material but they move so quickly that I'm not sure what kind of birds they are.

This is my outdoor living room.

The tulips are still popping up in the roses. I've been trying to move them for years but there are always a few that come up here anyway.

Dala Design tools

I taught a Dala Horse Workshop over the weekend and was able to give the design tools I've been developing a "test drive" to see how helpful they would be in encouraging people to put different design elements together to personalize their own horses.

I'm pleased to report that they worked well and people preferred them to paper instructions.
I'm continuing to refine this idea and I will also be painting some small wooden boxes to store them in and use with them. The beauty of these boxes is that they  provide six more surfaces (top, bottom,sides) to display even more design options.
I'm looking forward to figuring those out, painting  and testing them with another group of people soon.
I love the idea that I may be the first person in hundreds of years to bring something new to Dala Horse painting by making it fun and easy for anyone to do.

First Flowers of the Season

As you can see, the snow's finally gone and the weather is improving. It felt so great to have coffee in the garden again. It will be a while before we get plants in so I thought I'd indulge in a few flowers anyway. Even these metal ones cheer me up and I couldn't resist adding that Dala Horse garden stake for a bit more color.

Today's Dala Horse Design by Julia

I'm considering adding some blue and green to that orange area on the back but haven't quite decided yet. What do you think?

Twice as nice

Two heads are better than one

Yes, I'm still working on ways to create design tools that will make it easy to teach people how to paint these horses.

I just finished the first side of these two. I'm doing the manes in a way that eliminates the need to wait for one color to dry before adding the next. 

When you get a number of people painting these in a short period of time you want to make that as fast and easy as possible to make sure that you can finish your horse before the end of class.

Painting Red Dala Horses

Thanks so much to my friend Ron who brought me an assortment of different sizes and shapes of Dalas to work with. Among them were some horse heads that I will be painting with a number of different styles of bridles and reins to help people decide what they want to paint when I teach classes.

Here's a garden stake and a few other things in progress.

I'm really excited about this!!! Each of these has 2 different heads and then the edges show 2 different border designs so it's a great reference tool for your worktable and it's a pleasure to work with.

Painted Rose Card and Envelope Set

Painted Daffodil Thank You Card

Painted Envelopes

spring in the garden

Birds in the garden

Getting Started with Red Dala Horses

Here are a couple of photos of one of the horses I've painted. I'll be turning this into a practice sheet and then I'll also grab my paints and paint some of the individual brushstrokes in the open areas of the page so that people can see how a few simple strokes add up to a fast and easy project.

Colors needed:

red

yellow

blue

green

Brushes needed:

Rounds and liners in sizes to fit the size of your horse