Because of their elongated and rounded shapes, the pebbles picked up on the beaches are particularly well suited to this exercise... It won't take you an hour to transform them into a very convincing cactus... and you will have, in your interior, a pot of painted pebble cactus with a very decorative aspect...

The step by step that will follow is the digest of a video of "Mad stuff with Robb"... I encourage you to follow his channel and to subscribe to it...

But let's go back to this tutorial-Cactus in Pebbles without further delay... And don't prick yourself !

 

Gather the necessary material...

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To make a pebble cactus, choose an elongated and well rounded pebble of about ten centimeters to start ... if it has a rather irregular shape it will look all the more natural once you have painted it !

You also need some colors: acrylic tubes for painters... Above all, don't take so-called extra-fine colors... they are very expensive and reserved for professional artists who have very different requirements. Choose the "study" quality which is more than enough... Any brand, it does not matter. However, I like the BASICS colors from LIQUITEX : very covering, nice satin aspect after drying, they are perfect (see HERE for an assortment of 5 large primary tubes for 20$).

You will need shades of green here: if you work with primary colors you will mix blue and yellow that you will lighten or darken with white or black ...

Brushes: flat brushes and round brushes of different sizes. The flat brushes will be used to spread the paint evenly while the round brushes will be used for the details...

Take care of your brushes... don't let them soak in the water jar: they will become irreparably deformed... Rinse them in clear water and wipe them with a paper towel to dry them. At the end of the session, wash them with liquid soap (dish soap) and dry them with a cloth before storing them. You will find here a set of brushes particularly cheap for this kind of work. In the same vein, here is a cheap set of brushes at all of better quality...

Provide cardboard plates to be used as pallets... protect the tables with newspaper and... put aprons on the children who may be working with you. A jar of clean water, paper towels, clean rags, etc... You're ready to start the exercise!

 

Start the tutorial "Cactus in painted pebbles".

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Here is the step-by-step that will lead you to this cactus garden cutter made with your pebbles... If you wish to download the pdf of this tutorial, click here or click on the tutorial itself... Sinon voici le lien pour le fichier .rar

 

Vary the spines of the cacti!!!

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In order to avoid monotony, vary both the colors of your cacti, from the lightest to the darkest and change the "shape" of the thorns ...

These thorns will be traced with a fine round brush, as lightly as possible: you can trace them in white or black depending on what you like best. Do not be too regular or too little: space the bunches of thorns without too much mathematical rigor!

Here are a few examples to give you some ideas...

 

Voilà, you now have your cacti! No need to water them, they are hyper-resistant, those ones!

I wish you a lot of pleasure of creation with these painted pebble cacti !!!