Lilly Pulitzer-inspired Monogram Painting!

As my first "homecoming craft," I would like to share with you my monogram & Lilly Pulitzer-inspired painting that I started earlier this spring but just finished this past week!  

I'm not a particularly gifted painter, so I'm really proud on how this turned out... If you didn't notice I'm going through a bit of a girly-girl stage... :)

I've always loved those patterns that act as an anthem of sorts for girls... So Lilly seemed appropriate. I chose the pinkest, most classic pattern of Lilly's to base my painting on:

My only little "adjustment," which was kind of unintentional, was painting mine in slightly warmer pinks... I naturally gravitate toward rosier pinks over magenta shades, so my darkest shade of pink leans more toward the hot pink/red spectrum. :)

What you'll need:

• Any kind of paint brushes you prefer. I had previously bought one of those cheap 3-type brush packs with a variety of tips and angles. For this painting I really only used a wider straight edge brush, a fine tip, and a medium tip. This is up to you and your painting techniques!
• Paint palette - I used a $3 round plastic one that I can re-cover.
• A square, ready-made canvas
• I chose a 10"x10" back-stapled traditional canvas - it was less surface to paint, and the circle size was just the right size.
• A bowl.. you'll see :)
• Pencil with a good eraser
• Cup - for water to put paint brushes in! Also some sort of towel or paper towel to dry them off after they're rinsed... (we've all painted when we were little right?)
• Acrylic Paint
• I have never noticed much of a texture/quality difference between cheaper and more expensive bottles of acrylic paint (the small ones), so I went with the least expensive. The brand I used is called Apple Barrel!
• The colors I used were white, a light pink, a dark pink, a light green, a dark green, and a turquoise. 
• Adhesive faux pearls (optional)
• I lined my monogram with pearls, but you can choose anything! Sticky fake flowers.. paint.. ribbon, etc. The brand I used was Recollections - they were the perfect stickiness, and the perfect not-too-white, not-too-yellow shade.
• A plan! 
• Choose your favorite Lilly pattern and your initials (or friends).. I recommend the bigger patterns.

Steps:

1. Lightly outline the shape of your flowers with your pencil. Don't worry about making these too precise - you're going to cover them with paint anyway! (PS I didn't think I could draw them well until I started, so if you're nervous, don't be.)
2. Also, bring out your bowl (mine had a diameter of little over 6 1/5 inches), center it (I just eyed mine, you could measure if you want), and trace it lightly. 
3. Lastly, write your initials! I used a ruler for the straight ones, but you don't have to. You can eyeball most of it.
4. Bring out your light pink paint and paint over some of your pencil markings. Leave a good amount of white space! (Generally, you should apply the lighter colors first so you don't have to apply multiple coats on top of darker shades.) 
5. Repeat step 4 with dark pink paint, filling in more white space (but not all!)
6.             Then, use your lime/lighter green paint to fill in the leaves. 
   
7. Add brush strokes of dark green paint to the tips and edges of the leaves, like in the original Lilly pattern. I could have gotten more detailed with this, but did not feel the need to! :) 
8. Now it's coming together, eh?? :) This is a fun part! Your initials... it's what makes your piece YOURS!! I chose the same green as the leaves, but it's up to you of course. (FYI - I ended up doing a second coat of this after I painted my background to make it opaque and to clean up the edges I was sloppy with.)
   
9. Almost there... now it's time to paint the background. I mixed my turquoise with white to get a light teal (like Lilly's), but it ended up drying darker than planned. I recommend adding a little more white than what looks right! You can always go over it with darker if you need to, but it's difficult to make the dark turn lighter. :)
1. I also recommend that you go over your bowl outline again so it doesn't disappear when you paint over it.. you still need to see it to apply the pearls on the canvas!
   
10. The last step is the pearls. To me, pearls scream classy, so it only seemed appropriate since we are showing some love to Lilly. I recommend LIGHTLY sticking them on the bowl's outline (that you can see through the aqua paint), because when I got to the very end, I couldn't quite fit another pearl in between two and had to readjust some. Just play around with it and you'll be fine. :)

ANDDDD VOILA!