3D Rainbow Sculpture Painting

This instructable shows how to make your own 3D piece of art along with using lots of colors together.

1. 2 - 1/4 inch thick 30in (76.2cm) by 20in (50.8cm) poster board (if you can not find poster board any thick paper will work it just won't get the sculpture feel which is okay it will still be cool).
2. 40 - 1in (2.54cm) by 1in poster board pieces (cardboard also works if you are using paper).
3. 7 - 15in (38.1cm) by 10in (25.4cm) pieces of poster board (this can be done by splitting the board into 4 quadrants) or however big your piece of paper is if you are using that.
4. Exacto knife
5. Hot glue
6. Colored pencils that have all the colors of the rainbow including brown optionally have them in multiple shades as well, but it is okay if all you have is one shade. My warm colors red, orange, and yellow were all neon, but it is okay if these colors are not neon.
7. Paint - red, orange, yellow (optionally neon), green, blue, purple, white, and optionally black (if there are any darker shades of these colors without using black use those as well because adding black can take away the brightness, but it is okay if you do have to add black it shouldn't make too much of a difference).
8. Paper
9. White fine liner/ white paint
10. Tape

Optional supplies:

1. Watercolor paper
2. Watercolor
3. Colorful LEDs

First, pick the focus of your piece and a location it could be anything, but it is always cool if the focus piece has a meaning. I chose a phoenix, this bird is made out of fire so it would be cool if it was instead made out of a gooey rainbow. I thought a good place for this would be a tunnel under a city like a drainage ditch. This could be cool because it represents finding beautiful things in the most unlikely of places like a rainbow is found after a rain storm.

For this piece of art, there are going to be a lot of colors and a melty feel so for the elements it is important to choose things that will look good in multiple colors so you are not limited. I chose flowers as one of the elements because they come in all different colors (you can replace the flowers with whatever you like or you can keep the flowers). The types of flowers to choose from is also something to consider. It is a good idea to choose flowers from each part of the rainbow or ones that will look nice with the colors of the rainbow also make sure to tie some of the flowers into your main piece of the piece of art (for me it is the phoenix). Also, consider that some flowers will need to be hung because there is going to be a ceiling of color and it will look plain unless it has something on it. The flowers that I chose for each part are shown below:

Roof - Lilacs and the Fuchsia flower

Walls - Dahlia, white tulips (to me phoenixes are a symbol of rebirth because they turn into ash then come back to life white tulips and lewisias mean rebirth as I understand), Lewisia, and Gladiolas

Floor - Daisies and Flame lilies (fire like a phoenix)

Lastly, I chose to add yellow butterflies you don't have to add butterflies, but since there are so many flowers there must be a couple of butterflies.

Each panel needs to stay the same size, but the cut-out portion needs to get small. The amount of art shown should also get smaller and the art on the panels showed get less detailed. This will mimic what it is like for things to be farther away. Each panel will be cut like a square frame the frame part getting bigger but the place for the art will get smaller and only be placed on the very inside of the frame. For example, one frame is 2.75in thick, but the art will be placed on the inner side of the frame with 1.25in of room for the art. Dimensions are listed below (these should be adjusted if you are using paper or do fewer panels):

Frame 1 - 1.5in (3.81cm) thick, art placement 1.5in (3.81cm)

Frame 2 - 2.75in (6.98cm) thick, art placement 1.25in (3.18cm)

Fram 3 - 3.75in (9.53cm) thick, art placement 1in (2.54cm)

Frame 4 - 4.5in (11.43cm) thick, art placement 0.75in (1.9cm)

Frame 5 - 4.75in (12.07cm) thick, art placement 0.25in (0.64cm)

Frame six - no cut-out

Drawings: Each panel Well be melting from the top of the rainbow to the bottom, so the roof will be pink/red, orange, and yellow the walls will be green and the floor will be blue. Since the separation of the colors is farther apart the bottom will be a river flowing into the tunnel and the top will be a canopy of lilacs and fascia while the sides will be green foliage.

NOTE FOR ALL PANELS: each thing drawn can be drawn with drips. For example, the flowers could be dripping into the goo maybe even spreading its color into the goo.

The 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th panels are all drawn with the same technics. For the top draw flowy branch-like structures, the way I constructed mine is two curved lines that meet at a point farther or closer together depending on the thickness of the branch. Next on the ends of each branch draw some lilacs I shaped mine like a four-leaf clover with a dot in the center. Remember the flowers are bunched together so some will be partially covered up. Moving on to the fascias they should be dangling from a small stem with about four peddles pointing out to the side or up. The fascia has a small bud of peddles under the four peddles and a couple of pollen stems coming out of the bud. Finally, for the roof add lots of drip shapes these can be long or tiny or they could be peeling away anything that looks melty. Note: anything that is hanging including drips can hang over into the next layer. The drawing lines are more like guidelines. Since the lines are not going to be a straight line for every layer besides the first layer extend the the art so no white poster board is showing.

For the sides add all the flowers that were listed for the walls in the first step. It is okay to not fit every flower on each layer this is good because the artwork is already so busy therefore anything you can do to make it not as busy should be utilized. Lewisias and gladiolas can be finicky flowers so using a reference image if needed is always a good idea even using one for something like a tulip is a good idea. In general, though lewisias have slit peddles and many pollen tendrils, and gladiolas often have one peddle in the back and three to four in the front. Dalias have many repeating triangular peddles and the white tulip has peddles that rap around the flower and then flare out at the top. Finally, add more drips on the walls.

The bottom of the tunnel will be a river so add soft wave-like patterns because the river is in more of a whimsical style I don't think white caps would fit, but if you want something different go for it this is your piece of art. Next, add daisies floating along the river. These daisies should not only get smaller, but denser towards the phoenix, like the phoenix is creating these flowers. Add flame lilies sticking out of the waves along with stemmed daisies. Often times flame lilies have wavey thin peddles that curve up with small stems and pollen coming out from underneath.

The 3rd panel will have the phoenix in it. This means there will be no flowers besides daisies falling off the phoenix. If you need to push back the frame like I had to make it so it looks like the rainbow goo is falling around the phoenix. When drawing the phoenix the wings and the tail should be bigger than the body. Since a phoenix is a mythical creature it can be drawn in many different ways. For my phoenix, I made the tail into peacock-type feathers with shorter pointy feathers at the base of the tail. I also added peacock feathers to the head of the phoenix, like a crown. I made the wings quite large and the tips have goo coming off of them almost like when the phoenix is flying drips of goo are flinging off the phoenix. Again if your interpretation of the phoenix is different than mine that is totally okay.

The last panel which is the sixth panel and also the one with no cut out needs nothing drawn on it because it is so far away it will be one color.

Lastly, use your exacto knife to cut out each panel. Take your time to get as much detail as possible (if you don't have an exact knife just cut straight lines with scissors). Remember to be very safe and avoid cutting towards yourself.

This step will be split into 3 parts the roof, walls, and bottom. The phoenix will be explained separately.

Note - each drip should have a shadow and if the layer is below the top layer make the edges darker to add the shadow from the first layer. This is a tunnel-like piece of art so each panel color should get darker like an ombre the farther you go back the darker it is.

The roof:

1. Colored pencils needed - purple, brown, green, pink, orange, and yellow (optionally neon).
2. Coloring - When coloring in the drips use pink, orange, and yellow to make ombre drips. The placement on each panel can be different just keep in mind the way the rainbow goes, but it is okay to mix it up a little bit like putting orange at the top and reversing the rainbow. It is important when putting pink and yellow next to each other that you add a little bit of orange because otherwise the order of the rainbow will be messed up and the colors won't blend. When coloring around the branches use pink and then orange around the flowers. Color the branches a reddish brown and outline the lilac peddles with a darker color than the peddle. Make the fascia's four peddles sticking up pink and the flower bud a dark purple with yellow pollen stems. The last thing to do is add some green drips in to start the transition to the green section.

The walls:

1. Colored pencils needed - pink (neon and non-neon), orange (non-neon), yellow (non-neon), green, blue, and purple.
2. Coloring - Outline the drips with dark green then color the center of the drips a lighter green and bring the dark green through it like grass. You can also use dark green for shadows. Just like the roof the green portion needs to transition from the warm colors and it also needs to transition into the blue and purple, so make some of the drips those colors to transition. For the flowers, it is always smart to look at reference photos if needed. Each flower should get simpler as the panels get smaller. Lewisias have pink and orange peddles with a white outline and white pollen stems. Dahlias will also be pink make sure to add variation in the peddles. tulips are colored yellow with an outline of dark yellow. The gladiolas will be orange. It is okay if the flowers aren't hyperrealistic because the style of the whole piece isn't hyperrealistic.

The bottom:

1. Colored pencils needed - pink, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
2. Coloring - For the water use all the blues and purples to add streaks coming out of the green like water is rushing out from under the green. This is the only part that does not need drips. Add plenty of different shades of purple, blue, and a couple of streaks of pink like the drips from the roof fell into the river. Add different colored daisies floating down the river and feel free to add the colors of the flowers into the river like the color is leaking. Color the daisies yellow and the flame lilies orange, red, yellow, and green.

The Phoenix:

1. Colored pencils needed - all
2. Coloring - Starting with the tip of the beak create a rainbow that goes to purple and then starts to repeat on the feat. For the pointy feathers choose one color and create an ombre from light to dark. The peacock tail feathers need to be a full rainbow starting from purple and going to pink at the tip and for the center biggest feather go from pink to purple. Then color the eyes of the feathers with two colors on each ring (these colors should be next to each other in the rainbow). The wings should be in the same style as the river using colors blue and purple with rainbow daisies. Each head feather has two colors that are right next to each other in the rainbow the same color never touching.

Panel six: make this panel a mixture of dark green and light green.

Colored pencils look really nice, but it can be hard to get different darknesses of the different colors. They also have a hard time coloring the exposed foam on the edges of the foam board. In this step take your paints and go in and try to match the colors as close as possible to the colored pencils (if they don't match add that color into the panel) and paint the edges of each layer with the respective colors. If you look at the edges of each panel lined up it should look like an ombre. Next, take your colors and use the brightest to enhance the colors of the bird and make the rivers increasingly darker. This is the time to fix any mistakes that were made as well. Finally, use white or a white fine liner to add highlights to the drips.

First, check that all the panels are the same size including the 7th (this should have no paint on it). Put a 1in (2.54) by 1in piece of poster board in the corner of each panel besides the 1st and the 7th panel. On the second layer take the end of one string of LEDs and place them along the bottom and use another string of LEDs on the top of the 2nd panel below the spacers and tape down the LEDs. Fold the LEDs around the edges and tape them in a square pattern on the back of panel 2 bending the wire so it goes along the edge. Use as much tape as you want it is better to have them stay in place. Next, glue panel 2 to panel 3 and fold the LEDs over the edge of panel 3 and repeat the same steps used on the back of panel 2. Repeat this until pannel 4 where you will do the same thing done on panel 2 but then bring it up to the top edge and just line the top and bottom edges. If you still have LEDs left like I did bring them over to the previous panel and just tape them on the edges. Finally, bring the LED batteries to the back of the whole piece and tape them down. Add 5 spacers in each corner on the back cut out holes in the 7th panel to fit the switches and glue on the 7th panel.

Take watercolor paper (you can also use regular paper and just use acrylics) and paint one piece of paper rainbow and one grey. The grey will represent the street above like this magical tunnel is below a city. Fit the rainbow to the sides of the art piece with red at the top and purple at the bottom. Attach the grey to the top and bottom it is okay if you have to cut the grey into squares because it will help represent a city street, and it is finished!