Monday 19 September 2011

Altered Mirrors and Frames–Completed Flower Paintings on Mirrors

Here are the mirrors ready for painting, with the outlines of the designs drawn with pencil as a guide to where to apply the paint.

On this green one, you can just make out the daisies.

15 Daisies Drawing on Mirror

This is the Harvest one.

14 Harvest Drawing on Mirror

This is the Poppies one.

13 Poppies Drawing on Mirror

Before I started painting, I meant to apply some acrylic varnish or gel medium to seal the surface, but I forgot. When I splashed any water onto the frame, it did make the distress ink run, so I had to be very careful.

Here are the completed paintings.

18 Finished Daisies Mirror

17 Finished Harvest Mirror

16 Finished Poppies Mirror

At this point I decided to add the acrylic varnish. Silly me. It’s water based, isn’t it, and as soon as I ran the brush over the surface, the distress ink all ran! Panic panic!!! On the particular painting I was working on, I had to get a damp cloth and rub off all the distress ink and redo it! Time for Shoshi to put her thinking cap on. I haven’t got any spray acrylic varnish, so I sprayed on some inkjet fixative instead, and it worked a treat! I just sprayed on a thin layer (it smelt awful) and left it to dry, after which I could paint on the acrylic varnish with impunity. It might have been OK just to rely on the fixative, but I wanted to be sure.

The mirrors now have an almost matt finish which is quite pleasing.

I have got six more mirrors coming from Ebay, in addition to the three that I’ve painted with black gesso which I am going to do with a steampunk theme. I’ve also got six small wooden frames for my original ATC-sized flower paintings, and today I won a nesting set of twelve round Ikea gift boxes on Ebay – my hubby bought some of these once and I loved them and wished I’d bought some too, and they’ve subsequently discontinued them, which is a shame. (He hasn’t got many left, and when I asked him if he still wanted them, unfortunately he said he did!!) The person I got them from on Ebay has apparently had them, unused, for many years! I am delighted to be getting these, as they will be fun to alter too.

I am off to a craft show on Friday, and hopefully will come back with some papier mache boxes in different shapes to alter, and maybe some wall plaques. I am hoping that these items will sell at the upcoming church exhibition, as I think they would make nice Christmas presents.

Watch this space for progress on all these projects!

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