Homemade Mona Lisa

For my art class, I needed to sign up for the "Making History" contest. I thought it over, and I always wanted to try to recreate the famous painting "Mona Lisa" with my own style, using my own supplies.

Materials/tools:

1. A Ruler
2. A blank canvas
3. A sanding block
4. A wooden frame
5. Glue
6. A piece of paper
7. A print-out of the Mona Lisa
8. A pencil
9. Skin-color markers
10. Paint: Yellow, dark blue, blue, green, copper, brown, light blue, white, and gold.
11. Plates or something to mix paint in
12. Small paintbrushes
13. One large paintbrush
14. A jar to hold water
15. Something to smudge ink(your finger, a tissue, or Q-tip will work)

Trace the inside of the frame on the canvas. Then, take the printed image of the Mona Lisa and rub the pencil tip on the back of it to cover the entire back. Flip it over again and lay it on the canvas. Use the pencil and draw over all essential details of the painting. When done, remove the picture to reveal a faint painting outline.

Using the lighter shades of the skin-tone markers and yellow paint, diluted with water, paint over the face and hands. Use the darker shades of the skin-tone markers to start making the hair. Throughout the whole process, lightly erase the pencil marks after painting over the area, and use a smudger tool to blend colors. Also, for wide areas, use the brush tip of the markers. For the smaller areas, use the fine-tip marker end.

1. For the sleeve ends, use less-diluted yellow paint to fill in the sleeve highlights. Use the darker shades of the skin-tone markers to fill in the rest of the sleeve, with the lower parts being darker and the upper parts being lighter. Make the small folds in the highlight dark as well. In the middle section of the sleeve, leave some parts lighter than the rest to show light hitting the sleeve. Make the surrounding parts dark, with a few dark lines running through the highlights. On the high parts of the sleeves, make it overall dark.
2. For the dress, use a light and dark marker to make the dress collar. Then, use a dark colored marker to draw the dark wrinkles of the dress. Then, use the green paint -diluted by water- to give a green tint over the dress. When dry, draw the rest of the dress's wrinkles and blend.
3. For the scarf, use yellow - diluted by water- to tint the whole area. When dry, use the markers, light and dark, to create the folds. For the part over the shoulder, make a dark brown gradient that runs down the back while blending.
4. Afterward, color the stand under her hands with light marker colors.
5. When all is done, use the darker markers to finish coloring the hair. Use your lightest marker color to color in her veil.

For this step, I decided to go more abstract due to my limited canvas size and to add my own personal touch.

1. Using all the paint colors, make a blended colorful background that starts with a green-blue and ends in a light brown color. Use the large and small brushes to blend. Don't be afraid to exit the outline.
2. When done, use a small-sized paintbrush to paint and blend a white outline around Mona Lisa's figure.

WARNING: Do NOT let the colors touch the Mona Lisa figure. This will cause the ink of the painting to go runny and blend with the surroundings.

1. Use a sanding block to sand out the rough parts of the wooden frame
2. Use the large brush to add a layer of white paint over the frame
3. Wait for it to dry
4. Mix the gold, copper, and yellow paint
5. Using the paint mixture to paint over the frame
6. Wait for it to dry

1. Using the glue, add some to the back of the frame
2. Place the frame onto the canvas
3. Place something heavy on top of it to hold it down
4. When dry, you have your home-made Mona Lisa!