Getting Started Selling Your Dala Horse Designs

At the top of the page is a photo of a wooden horse I designed, carved and painted several years ago so I thought I'd design a few more loosely based on that design.

It might be fun to see how far I can take the idea. This one will be used on a line of baby clothes that I'm designing. Please respect that and don't compete with me using my design. Create your own and the skies the limit for you.

It's hard out there for those of us starting out. We need to help each other.

It's easy to start once you have your own designs there are many companies where you can put your designs on products for sale. I use zazzle and have tried cafe press, there are many other companies like that. You'd just need to search for them. Good Luck!

In the meantime my patchwork horses are appearing on baby products and other things in my zazzle stores.

Another fun subject that may sell well is Christmas designs.

This is the first time  in nearly 10 years that I've tried coming up with a new Christmas design. As you can see I've left a lot of space to keep designing until I come up with a horse that I really like. I suggest you do the same. Just Keep Trying.

Kicking Ideas Around for New Dala Horse Designs

When I'm sure what I want to do I start with a page of outlines.

Today I'm working with gouache and a black marker for outlining.

This one was clearly a mistake. I could try again without the marker but I think I'll pass on the idea for a while.

I've always enjoyed flowers so this one is my favorite.

I'll be outlining the vines and flowers on this one next. I think of patchwork quilts when I design things like this.

This one will be used on my line of baby clothes on zazzle for starters and I'll try it on other products after that.

After all of that i figured I'd go back to drawing and do another horse in black and white.

 Unfortunately the drawing was too busy, and the lines too fine to make into a rubber stamp so I'm not quite sure hat to do at that point. I could just paint it in. Keep checking the blog to see what happens with it and to get more ideas.

I decided to try painting in the flowers by hand and will attempt a number of background colors before doing anything permanent with it.

Dala Horse Lamp

This project turned out to be a lot of fun. My Husband built a wooden lamp about half a century ago in junior high school but we never quite knew what to do with it so it spent most of it's time in and out of boxes, closets and basements.

It's just made out of little squares of scrap lumber but after all of the spindles I painted for my wheelchair ramp while working on ideas for designing Dala Horses it suddenly occurred to me that it would be a perfect way to show off those designs and maybe a horse as well.

What do you think of the results?

Here are some In progress photos too taken in better light.

If you look through older posts you'll be able to see the wheelchair ramp, lampshade and the dala horses that I've mentioned here.

It was fun to find a project that ties it all together.

New Uses for Dala Horse Designs

I've been drawing dala horses for years but it was mostly for design purposes and nothing except teaching classes was done with them.

Lately it occurred to me that If I make all of the lines heavier that I can make them into rubber stamps. I haven't sold very many of them but I love them and use mine often to decorate my mail.

There are several more of these heavier drawings for use as rubber stamps and patterns but I'm hoping you'll buy those on the How to post cards that I have available in my Dala Horse store on Zazzle.

Thanks, 

A girl's got to make a living,

Julia

Dala Horses Designed on Canvas Panels

Wooden Dala Horse Daisy Design Ornaments

 As you can see there are a lot of fun ways to use a daisy on these horses.

 They're so easy and fun I can't resist using them whenever I run out of other design ideas.

 They seem to look good on just about any color background.

Following htrough on the New Dala Horse Designs

Having done the new design in red I experimented with other colors and variations of the design.

I'm glad I scanned the basic drawing before coloring it in. It will give me an opportunity to audition other color combinations before painting any more wooden horses.

Before I move on with that I'll be making a wooden horse with the yellow design on it.

The possibilities are endless. 

New Horse Design Based On Tradition

I started out with a drawing that combines several different, traditional design elements to create a new horse.

 

Next I filled in the drawing with watercolors and acrylics.

Here is the completed drawing. My next step will be to paint 2 wooden horses.
One will be freestanding to see what it looks like in 3 dimensions and the other will be a Christmas ornament to see how it looks flat.

Here are all three finished horses. It made me laugh because laying the ornament down on the page and standing the other horse up looked almost like the new horse design was jumping off the page and becoming real.

From this photo it's difficult to tell which horse is paper and which one is wood. I may use both versions on merchandise in my zazzle store. Depending on what sort of look that I'm going for.

Here's a better view of the wooden Christmas Tree Ornament.

Here you see the freestanding dala horse both standing alone and joining the collection of other horses that I have designed and painted.

I think it fits in pretty well, don't you?

New Years Resolution and the Dala Horse

Whether or not you believe in making New Years Resolutions, you can't argue the value of making positive changes.

The first place I'm starting is going through my last years sketchbook and following through on my drawings and ideas.

I started by revisiting my sunflower horse design. This time I used Jo Sonya Acrylics that come in a  more muted color pallate than I normally use.

While this may be fine with some people, I prefer a lighter, brighter approach that would capture the energy of my original watercolor.

My next project will be to carve and paint a wooden horse based on this color pencil and ink drawing.

When I've followed the rest of my designs through I'll be able to start some brand new designs for this year.

The nice thing about this is that I'll never have to worry "what if I'd done this one". I'll know for sure and have something tangible to show for it.

2018 Dala Horse Designs

One of the first changes that I'll be making with my Dala Horses this year will be to use base colors that I haven't used before.

It may spark some ideas for different designs too. New color or design combinations.

Here's my first one:

I'm using 3 different brands of paint right now so telling you the names of the colors won't help much.

Almost any paint in basic colors can be used as long as you have a red, yellow, blue. white and green. If your green is too dark add some white until you get a color that you like.

Keep in mind that your horse will look different once it has enough layers of clear coat over it. Because of our cold Minnesota winters I won't be putting the clear finish on mine until the spring or summer so that I can spray them outdoors.

How To Instructions For A Dala Horse Painting

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

1, 8x10 inch canvas panel

paint brushes

water to rinse off paintbrushes

rags 

cotton swabs (to clean up mistakes)

pencil

ruler

Acrylic Paints:

red

white

yellow 

blue 

green

1, 8x10 inch frame

STEP 1. Base coat canvas panel in a very light yellow. Mix in white if your yellow is too dark or bright.

STEP 2. draw or trace the horse shapes that you want to use. I've used 4 here but the number and type of horses you want is up to you.

STEP 3. Paint the horses red.

STEP 4. Draw very light vertical pencil lines. I used one inch, two inches and then one all of the way across.

STEP 5. Paint a blue stripe over the lines.

STEP 6. Use a round brush to add red dots about 1/4 inch over the blue lines.

 STEP 7. Add yellow to horses as shown. It may take up to 3 coats to cover the red.

STEP 7. Add blue dots as shown to belly and chest straps.

ADD OTHER DETAILS AS SHOWN:

STEP 8. yellow dots in the center of the red ones on background.

STEP 9: green comma strokes to frame red dots on background.

STEP 10. yellow dots inside the blue ones on the horses.

STEP 11. Long comma strokes in red and blue on the yellow mane

STEP 12. white comma stokes on each side of blue dots

STEP 13. Paint saddle area as shown. Kurbits in Blue and Green accented by comma strokes in red, yellow, blue and white.

STEP 14. Bridal and reins in white.

I was really pleased with the way this one worked out and best of all the stripes line up perfectly when used as a repeat pattern while designing fabric and other products with it.

Many of my results are for sale at zazzle on hundreds of different products that you may enjoy.