Artline Monday - Poppy rocks

Last November I painted a couple of rocks with poppies on them for Remembrance Sunday so this year I thought it would be nice to make a whole batch of them to hide for people to find.

I started off by giving each rock a base coat of white paint using an Artline poster marker so my designs would stand out and look more vibrant than if I had been drawing on top of the natural grey stone colour.

Rocks with their base coat

Once the white coat was dry I started to draw and paint on the rocks using more poster markers and a selection of Artline 853 OHP markers.  I also used a purple Supreme highlighter on one of my rocks and a red calligraphy pen on a couple too.

Drawing a poppy

On the smaller stones I kept the designs simple, drawing one poppy on each with the OHP pens.

Small poppy rock & the pens used to make it

Two more small rocks & the pens used

My husband suggested I make one of the poppies purple to remember all the animals who were killed during war so I coloured one of the flowers in with the purple Supreme highlighter.  I wrote on it "Remembering the animals of war" so people would know what it was for if they found it and weren't familiar with the purple poppy's meaning.

Purple poppy & the pens used

On the larger rocks I had more room to play with so I could get creative!

Painting a poppy

I started this one by painting a poppy...

With the silhouette

... and then drew a silhouette of a solider and dog so that the solider's head would make up the centre of the poppy.

Adding the dates

The last thing I did was to write the word "Remember" and the dates.

Finished design & the pens used

On the next rock I used the red poster marker to make a series of splodges and then...

Red splodges for poppies

... drew in the stems, leaves, flower buds and centres using the Artline 853 OHP markers.

With stems, leaves, buds and centres

For my Valentines day rocks I used a calligraphy pen to write on the stones so I thought I'd give that another go on a couple of the poppy rocks.

Calligraphy pen rock - Remember them

I also drew two poppies on the first stone and a boarder of poppies on the second one.

Another calligraphy pen rock - Lest we forget...

I painted a couple of drooping poppies on this rock, again using the red poster marker and then used the OHP pens for the stems and middle of one of the flowers.

Drooping poppies & quote rock

I saw this design on Pinterest and wanted to give it a go.  It is a battlefield cross for a fallen solider which is made up of a pair of boots, a gun and helmet.

Battlefield cross & poppies

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae is a poem that really stuck with me when I learnt about it in school so I wrote the first stanza on one of my rocks.  It isn't as neat as I would have liked it to be but sometimes writing on a stone surface is a little difficult with the bumps and holes. 

In Flanders fields poem

My eldest daughter was watching me paint these rocks and she wanted to make one too so she selected a stone and drew her own design.  I love her poppy in the middle!

My daughter's poppy rock

Once all of the rocks were finished I used a black OHP marker to write my #ArtlineRocks message on the back of them.  It tells the person who finds it that they can either keep or rehind the stone and asks them to share a photo of it online with the Artline rocks hashtag.

The messages on the back of each rock

Here is our finished collection of rocks!  A couple of them will be travelling somewhere up north and a few will be heading down south too, the rest will be hidden around Birmingham over the next few days...

The finished set

... in fact we're already started hiding some!

Starting to hide the rocks

I hope these rocks are all found at least once before Sunday and I would love to see them popping up online too so I can see where they end up!

If you want to read more of my rock painting posts you can find them here.

Thanks for stopping by!