Rock Painting Projects, JoyRox, Beach Pebble & Stone Art
Rock painting and stone art is an economical art form enjoyed by hobbyists and professional artists alike. Explore the endless creative ways to enjoy this unique artform!
Free Projects
Want to try your hand at rock painting? Try these free and fun projects on Creativity Portal by artist Ernestina Gallina of Pietrevive Rock Art and Maria Chatzi of Beach Stone Inspired!
Whimsical Painting on Rocks
By Ernestina Gallina
Four free whimsical rock painting projects: Written in Stone; Pansies in a Basket; and Valentine Love Bugs.
Pebble Stone Jewelry & Keyring Crafts
By Maria Chatzi
Learn how to create these one-of-a-kind key ring and pebble pendant crafts for Christmas and Valentine's Day!
How-to Rock Painting & Stone Art Sources
The following resources will inspire you to learn how to paint animals and other objects on rocks, and how to create your own stone sculptures and Bonnie Neubauer's JoyRox using ordinary rocks, a little bit of imagination, and lots of creativity!
Bonnie Neubauer's JoyRox Tutorial
Create your own JoyRox! Bonnie Neubauer's whimsical "JoyRox" is a new collaborative urban art that combines the creative concepts of rock painting, scavenger- and Easter egg hunts, Zentangle®, Pet Rocks, and Found Art! Participate by decorating and leaving your own rocks in nature for others to find — submitting clues to the JoyRox.net Web site. Enjoy Bonnie's rock painting tips, techniques, and inspiring images for creating your own special rocks.
Pietrevive Rock Art
Pietrevive is a site fully devoted to rock painting. It features galleries showing a wide variety of animals painted on stones. The site provides information on rock painting supplies and techniques and offers painting lessons as both free downloadable PDF files and fee-based advanced tutorials.
Maria Chatzi's Beach Stone Inspired
This Web site by jewelry artist, craft designer, and teacher Maria Chatzi teaches kids and adults how to turn ordinary beach stones and pebbles into magnificent works of art, poetry, jewelry pieces, and home decor. Includes detailed sections on jewelry design, how to be frugal with beach stones, geological information about the origin of beach stones and pebbles, and ways to inspire interest in rock painting, pebble art, and stone crafts.
Pet a Rock
Learn the fun techniques to turning ordinary rocks into pet works of art! All you need to begin are smooth stones, inexpensive craft paints, and your imagination. Pet a Rock features plenty of how-to instruction and inspiration.
Lin Wellford's Stone Menagerie Rock Art
Lin Wellford is well-known for pioneering this creative art form and has published many rock painting how-to books on the subject. Author of many rock painting books and videos for kids and adults that "have become a phenomenon in hobby, craft and decorative painting circles, Lin illustrates some of the amazing possibilities for creating a wide variety of animals, little rock cottages, and three dimensional flowers and plants using ordinary rocks and stones."
The site not only showcases Lin's books, videos, and magazine Painting on Rocks, it also features a free rock art newsletter with site-accessible archives back to Spring 1999; and a frequently asked questions area where you can submit your own rock painting questions to learn answers to such questions as: Why paint on rocks? What kind of paint do you use? Where can you get rocks? I'd like to try painting rocks, but I can't draw. How do you transfer patterns?
Stones Park, a Park of Painted Rocks
Web site of Sicilian artist Maria Di Bella, features an art gallery and several how-to rock painting tutorials inspired by Lin Wellford's books. Includes creative ideas of other items that can be made from stones such as pendants, magnets, paper-weights, Christmas decorations, and games.
Pet a Rock: How-to Rock Painting
By Patty Donathan
Rock painting is economical, fun and easy to learn. It's perfect for all ages and levels of ability. All you need are smooth rocks that you find or buy, regular acrylic craft paint, varnish and brushes. You can start with a simple ladybug and work your way up to more realistic dog and cat rocks.
I started painting rocks in 1999 after buying a book called "Painting Animals on Rocks" by Lin Wellford. I was intrigued that something so simple and unusual as a rock could be turned into an animal. I had the desire and passion to learn how to turn rocks into "3-D" animals. You actually take the whole rock and make it look like an animal. It helps to have the correct shape of a rock for some animals, but the easy to find round or oval shaped rocks make great cats, dogs and other animals.
I created my rock painting Web site, Pet A Rock, to share pictures of rocks I painted and provide information called "How To Paint — Step by Step Pictures for the Beginner." I took step-by-step photos of how to paint a rock and typed up instructions for various projects. You'll find FREE instructions for a raccoon, hosta plant, colt, rabbits, gnome hut, house, barn, daisy plant, and skunks.
I also have sections called "Books To Help You Paint," "How To Repair a Damaged Rock," and "Supplies For Rock Painting." Although I have a lot of free information on my Web site to help anyone learn to paint rocks, I also wrote a "Rock Painting Tips" book for those who want extra information.
Along with rock painting, I started collecting memorabilia related to the old 70's Pet Rock. There is a section showing pictures of the original pet rock, the manual it came with, and more!
Rock painting has allowed me to make a nice little home business for myself. Once I felt confident and built up my inventory of painted rocks, I started selling them at craft shows. Before long, people asked if I could paint their pet on a rock. Since my goal was always to be able to do custom pet orders someday, I nervously accepted my first order. The customer sent me photos of their pet and I painted it on a rock. With the help of my digital camera and the Internet, I'm able to send my customers progress photos of their pets as I'm painting them. This allows me to make any changes, per the customer's suggestions if they have any. Once they approve the finished rock, they make payment and I mail it off. Currently I get most of my orders from my Web site, so I have slowed down on the craft shows.
My favorite part of my Web site is now the "Your Pet" section. It shows all the pets I have painted for customers along side the photos that were sent to me for reference.
So if rock painting sounds interesting to you, check out my Web site at www.petarock.com. •
Updated 7/7/14
This exercise will help you to expand your ability to solve problems. Many times we set boundaries for ourselves when problem solving. We've got to think outside of the box, way outside of it. When literal definitions are not so important, we can redefine our creative process when deriving a solution to life's challenges. Who says that a line is completely without width? These dot puzzles will challenge you to rethink your creative problem
Expanding Your Capacity
Break through creative blocks with this guided imagery exercise. Learn:
- Everything I Ever Needed to Know I
Learned Painting - Clear Writer's Block: Reader-Centric Writing, Profiling
Your Readers - Your Book's Bottom Line:
Tracking and Totals - There is No Wrong Way
to Doodle - Being Open...
for Creativity - What is Creativity?
(9 Creativity Triggers)
Overcoming Self-Sabotage and Healing from Abandonment
If you’ve experienced ‘run-ins with your Outer Child — the self-sabotaging, bungling, and impulsive part of your personality’, often impacting creativity and productivity, this series by veteran psychotherapist Susan Anderson will inspire hope in you. The founder of the Outer Child and Abandonment Recovery movements, she has devoted more than thirty years of clinical experience and research to helping people resolve abandonment and overcome self-sabotage."Your Outer Child acts out and fulfills your legitimate childlike needs and wants in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in counterproductive ways: It goes for immediate gratification and the quick fix in spite of your best-laid plans." She says. Included in this series are helpful exercises and visualizations to help you focus your future intentions and become the engineer of your own life.
