How to make a peacock wall hanging

• Resene testpots in your choice of colours, Fleur chose Resene Torea Bay (body, head), Resene Tree Frog (back), Resene Parsley (handprints, feathers), Resene Happy Hour (eye spot 1), Resene Antique Brass (eye spot 2), Resene Bowie (eye spot 3, detail on body), Resene Surfs Up (eye spot 4/crescent moon shape), Resene Magma (eye spot detail), Resene Raven (legs, beak), Resene Black (legs, eye, beak) and Resene Quarter Dutch White (eye)
• Black fabric (ours was 55cm x 1m)
• Small and medium sized artist paintbrush
• White colouring pencil
• Cardboard (same size as the fabric)
• Clothes pegs
• Two lengths of dowel
• String for hanging
• Willing hand-printing participants

Instructions

Step 1: Sew the top and bottom edges over to form a loop so that a piece of dowel can fit in it for hanging the finished wall hanging up. Fleur also sewed the two long side edges of the fabric over to give it a nice finished edge.

Step 2: Cut a large piece of cardboard to the same size as the fabric and use clothes pegs to hold the fabric on to the cardboard. This helps protect your work surface from getting paint bleeding through on to it. It also helps keep your fabric straight and taught.

Step 3: Use a white colouring pencil to sketch out the shape of the peacock’s head, body and back (Photo 1). Using an artist paintbrush, paint in the back of the peacock with Resene Tree Frog (Photo 2).

Step 4: Use Resene Torea Bay to paint in the head and body (Photo 3).

Step 5: Next, use a medium-sized artist paintbrush to paint Resene Parsley onto someone’s hand for hand printing. Apply two layers of paint. The first layer of paint dries quickly due to the heat of the hand. Be liberal with the second layer of paint – this layer won’t dry so quickly as the first coat acts as an insulating layer. Place the handprints around the peacock’s body, fanning out with each successive layer. The handprints form the base of the peacock’s eye spot feathers (Photo 4).

Step 6: Now it’s time to layer up the different colours for the eye spots. First use Resene Happy Hour to paint on an egg shape on to the palm of the hand print. Make it as big as you can to add a good amount of colour and so that you have room for all the other paint colours (Photo 5).

Step 7: Next paint on a smaller egg shape using Resene Antique Brass. It will look like an avocado! (Photo 6).

Step 8: Using Resene Bowie, paint on a circle on top of the Resene Antique Brass (Photo 7).

Step 9: Finally, use Resene Surfs Up to paint on a crescent moon shape on the top half of the Resene Bowie circle (Photo 8).

Step 10: Finish by adding the feather spines for each of the eye spots using Resene Parsley. Use Resene Raven and Resene Black for the legs, beak and eyes. Fleur used Resene Bowie and Resene Surfs Up for the head crest, Resene Quarter Dutch White for highlights around the eye, and Resene Bowie and Resene Parsley for extra detailing on the body and back (Photo 9).

Step 11: Insert a length of dowel at the top and bottom and hang up using a piece of string.

Top tip: Fleur finished by adding an extra layer of Resene Magma on top of the Resene Antique Brass on the eye spots to give it a bit of shimmer.  Use a green Resene metallic paint as a final layer on top of the handprints to give the shiny/iridescent look that peacock feathers have.

Styling and images by Fleur Thorpe. June 2020.