Skip to content

Trying Something Scary… A Monstera Painting!

Posted in EDTC 300, and Learning Project

This week, I followed along with a YouTube video to create a Monstera painting. As I have said before, I love plants, and I was hoping to use this learning project to fill up my wall with plant paintings. I decided to record myself throughout the entire process of painting, which made it take a little longer than it usually does to complete the painting. Afterward, I used the application DaVinci Resolve to edit my footage and then export it into a high-quality video so that I could upload it to Youtube, my video is linked here. I was originally going to use iMovie to edit, but my brother uses DaVinci Resolve because he is an actor and prefers high-quality video for his self-taped auditions. 

I found it a bit difficult to strictly follow a YouTube tutorial for this week’s painting because I like to add my own ideas to my art. The video I followed is here: and it was only about 15 minutes long. The artist explained the colours and brushes that you needed and also showed what her sketch looked like before starting the painting. Since her video is sped it is hard to just paint along with it, I had to pause it quite a few times to catch up and then I would forget to press play again and start doing my own thing on the painting. Something like a Bob Ross tutorial would be better for a beginner to follow along with because it shows step by step in real-time. 

DaVinci Resolve is a free colour grading and non-linear video editing application that can be used both onWindows and macOS. The software is pretty easy to use, even though it looks intimidating. It allows you to export your videos at a higher quality than most video editing software, such as iMovie. It fits within the Modification part of the SAMR model because it can be used to redesign tasks, such as having students record and edit their own movies to show their understanding of a topic. 

I had my brother’s help in editing the video, but we also looked at this YouTube tutorial on using the application. To import your video footage go to the media section on the bottom of the screen and select it, then go to “file” on the top left of the screen and select it, then select “import,” select “media,” and find whatever files you want to import, they will show up in the media pool. Then, go to the edit section on the bottom to drag and drop files onto the timeline. 

The software will remember the video that is there, even when you trim it, so you can easily change the trim. To take out sections of video, play it and press the “I” key for “in” and then play it until you want to stop it, then press the “O” key for “out.” It will section off the selected area and then you just have to press the backspace key to remove it. 

To change the speed of the video, right-click on the video on the timeline, select “change clip speed,” and increase to whatever percentage you want, then press “change” to save. To remove audio, you have to lock the video first on the timeline and then you can delete the audio off of the timeline. 

2 Comments

  1. Benton F

    Hi Raine,

    You definitely had me with the ‘Monstera’ bit – I was expecting a painting more like the famous ‘Scream’ one! I do love the plant artwork though, it’ll definitely green up your living space. I have also used DaVinci Resolve quite a bit in my education. It has a definite learning curve to it, and can be quite overwhelming if you try to do everything all at once. I am glad you found resources to help, because I would definitely recommend searching across YouTube for those supports. I found that watching people talk through what they were doing, rather than reading it on a website, was much more helpful. Great post!

    June 14, 2022
    |Reply
  2. Anonymous

    I love love love your painting! AMAZING work! I too, am a huge plant lover so to see this painting actually warms my heart a little! (Side note: did you know the plant monstera can actually produce fruit when in the wild?)
    I have often referred to videos as well when creating art so I love that you were able to find one that is so much fun, colorful, and bright!
    Just want to let you know I am not able to find the link or video that you used on youtube to create your painting!

    June 15, 2022
    |Reply

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Skip to toolbar