SIMPLE TRUTHS â—½ ENCOURAGEMENT
Pebble Art Family
by Marcy Lytle
I saw something on a vacation years ago that piqued my interest and I planned to go right home and copy it…only it was years before I actually did it! It was called pebble art, and I’d seen little framed works of pebbles being used as art to depict all sorts of scenes, but the ones of family caught my attention.
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Fast forward to years later, I decided it was the time to gather my pebbles. We visited a small town on one of our weekend road trips and there was a river stream behind a restaurant where there were lots of small rocks and pebbles. We got a bag and started gathering. I had saved a couple pictures of those pebble art creations on my phone, so I knew I wanted the rocks to be small, flat and mostly smooth - and of all different shades from pale white to brownish hues. We gathered quite a few and headed home.
That sack sat in my garage for over a year before one very cold weekend earlier this year, I decided it was time. I did have to look up the inspiration again on line to refresh my memory, and I found a pebble art family that I wanted to copy, using my own kids and their kids…to make a complete picture.
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Next, I visited Michaels and asked the art employee in the back what kind of frame and glue I should use for this adventure! She showed me the frames (shadow boxes) and suggested E6000 for the glue. So I purchased both (be sure to get the clear or white – I accidentally bought black!).
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I went through my bag of rocks and realized I needed several more small pebbles; and we have a pebbled area for our back patio, so that’s where I found the rest of what I needed to create our family album in a box!
This is the one I found on line, to copy...
I studied the picture of the one I’d found online and began placing my rocks before ever gluing anything down. I also found some brown twine I had at home to use for the balloon string, and I was mostly excited about a heart-shaped pebble to place somewhere when the picture was complete!
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Once I had all of the rocks and twine centered and in place on the frame backing, I began gluing very carefully (especially since I had black glue!) I made sure the people were centered top to bottom and left to right. It really didn’t take very long.
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Finally, the entire creation was left to dry and secure overnight. The next day I placed the backing back in the shadow box and closed it up, and found a place to hang our family pebble art. The little heart-shaped pebble was perfect for center top, and the twine wasn’t just for the balloons – but it worked for legs on one of the kids and hair on my daughter-in-law’s head.
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Having the inspiration from online helped immensely, as it was so much easier to copy something than to create it. At least for me, it was!
I am not an artist, by any stretch. But copying? That I can do. If it’s not too hard or doesn’t take too long…as I’m not so patient. I’m so pleased with our family pebble art. It really turned out to be pretty simple once I had the stones and the glue!
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If you’ve got a project in mind, maybe this spring is the time to start it and complete it…so I hope you do! Or I hope you’re inspired to make your own pebble art family to hang in your home, too!
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