Plaid is back! The great thing about plaid’s resurgence as a pattern is the new colors involved – no longer just red and black, bright colors are an important part of this trend. Plaid designer Holli did the project above, and I’m going to walk you through the steps. You’ll first need some supplies:
-A palette of five colors. Holli picked four brights and a lighter accent color. Her choices in FolkArt Acrylics:
- Color A – Jamaican Sea
- Color B – Yellow Citron
- Color C – Teal
- Color D – Aqua
- Color E – Wicker White (accent)
You’ll obviously need a surface, as well as some stencil tape – Holli used both 1/2″ and 1/8″ stencil tape. You’ll need one larger sized roll of stencil tape and one smaller. Finally, you’ll need a #10 flat paint brush and a smaller liner brush.
Prepare your surface. Paint your frame with colors A and B using the 1/2″ stencil tape. Make sure that your stripes are equal in size – you can eyeball it or you can measure it. Allow to dry.
The next step is to add more stencil tape on the color A stripes. Using the 1/8″ stencil tape, tape off lines on both the top and bottom of color A stripes. Paint in between the tape with color C and allow to dry.
Time to flip the frame vertically to paint more stripes! Using the 1/2″ stecil tape, create stripes on the frame and paint with color B. Once you do this, you’ll start to see the plaid pattern develop. Allow to dry.
Go back to the color A stripes and tape on the top and bottom of them as you did before (using the 1/8″ stencil tape). Paint with color C. You now have stripes going vertically and horizontally with colors B and C. Allow to dry.
Guess what? You are going to repeat the process with color D, except this time you are going to paint in the MIDDLE of color C stripes (both vertically and horizontally). Allow to dry.
Once your plaid pattern is done, finish it by accenting with Wicker White. You can see Holli painting hatch marks using White and a liner brush. How extensive you get with your detail is up to you!
Add some embellishments (Holli added white foam flowers and buttons) with glue and you are ready to go. You’ll soon be painting the town in Plaid.
Paint Me Plaid 