Who hasn't played with Spirograph before? When I was a little girls, I remember playing vaguely with them. But now that I see those intricate forms, I can not resist the urge to play with them again. Spirograph is an instruments that allows us to make patterns, mostly with curves and circles. The final result of the design will depend mostly of the size of the molds one is using. I personally love the forms produced after much swirling and twisting. The more turns I do, the more I love the result.
For some time now I wanted to do a mix of acrylics with these Spirograph, so I decided to do an easy tutorial with some simple materials. Refer to the image below for the list.

For this project all you'll need is an old (very old) book, the Spirograph (believe it or not, mine was from my nearest supermarket, Publix), acrylic paint  (I'm using kid's acrylics from Target, the colors are gorgeous), a white colored pencil, a paper punch (this one is from EK available at Michaels) and some brushes (the one above is from Martha Stewart collection also available from Michaels).

After cutting some pages from the old book, proceed to paint in them very freely. I grabbed some colors and started painting adding more water as I brush to sort of take some intensity and to add some levels of tones. After you are all done (remember there is no specific technique for this kind of painting), let the paper dry. Since I wanted it to dry faster, I carefully ironed them. After all dry, I cut a nice wavy curve on one of the borders using a paper punch to give it a cute detail. Then the fun part stared! Using the Spirograph I did some forms, trying in some instances to layer and mix them. Again, use your imagination for this. To make the whole paper a little bit interesting, I use some rubber stamps which I painted using the same acrylics. And that's it! I wrote some "love" words over it all, but you can skip this part if you wish.


These little works of art can be hanged from the wall using a bit of washi tape or they can also be framed. Let me know your thought about this easy tutorial and share your ideas on using the Spirograph.