Painting A Hall Chest Blue

In early Spring I was called upon to paint this cute little rustic hall chest.
Here you see it finished.A couple of years ago I painted this tall clock.





It was decided the hall chest was going to be less contrasty and less bright than the clock, so as not to be a blast of colour and interest when first coming into the place.
Here is how the top ended up...but first the piece went through several subtle transformations in tone.

I started off very light and white...too much. Too washed out.
.... the client was wanting something deeper, bluer....

There was also a moment when I introduced tiny bit off white, ivory colour in the highlighting, (see above)and that unfortunately moved it away from the coolness I was looking for...

See the difference?


Here is how it ended up (and the first image in this post, too)... and it was perfect.
These subtle differences in tone can be a huge deal in a very brightly lit, or very carefully colour-staged environment. it doesn't mean that there was anything "wrong" with the stages I went through with it. It means that when its right, its right, and its very important for someone like me to keep colours very clearly in my head. Something I enjoy doing, happily.

Trimming A Floorcloth

Here are some more pictures of the floorcloths I used semi gloss to finish them with. I felt the duller sheen added to the low key, slightly vintage feel I was aiming to acheive.
I trim my floorcloths. Some people turn the edges over and glue a hem, but that tends to make a bump along the edge which also wears; eventually a line appears.
I trim using a VERY sharp utility knfe and a metal straight edge.
I then paint an appropriate colour, or colours, into the raw selvedge, and seal it with flexible acrylic medium (PVA, basically). The acrylic medium is also mixed into my paints, so that the whole floorcloth is very flexible and very crack resistant.


This work was completed and delivered back in Janaury, (!) But I wanted to finish telling the story.

In The Bleak Midwinter

I have been a very lazy blogger. I have not been updating this nice blog for months....

I have lots of new work to show, but first I want to show these two wonderful floorcloths in their home. The client was gracious enough to send me these two pictures so you can see where they ended up! Remember to click on any image in my blog, and sometimes you can see it bigger.

Floocloth Set Almost Finished

These two matching floorcloths are now done, and I am varnishing them, satin in this case.....they get 3-4 coats of acrylic varnish, and then I will trim and seal the edges.....

The birds turned out cute!

These were great fun to paint, and I am very pleased with the results.

Matching Floorcloths Process Continues

Here you can see the plant design taking palce on top of the soft colours and patterns....

Its is a cheerful, stylised almost folkloric design, but distinctly modern and expressive too.

More pictures soon!

Matching Floorcloths Process

Here is the familiar process...stretch the canvas, prime the canvas, turn the canvas over, stretch and prime...

And start painting.

This design relies on the build up of a lot of patterns and colours to make it interesting and rich in the background of the main design...its important not to be in too much of a hurry here....

At the same time, the overall effect needs to be subtle and warm, not too bright or contrasty....

not harsh, not boring!

Just right....

Now some drawing takes place, with chalk, so I can easily make changes and then paint over my drawing, wiping away residual chalk marks...

Matching Floorcloths

I have been asked to do a set of two floorcloths for a kitchen, based loosely on some of my tile designs I have on my website...I made a series of drawings using the colours and imagery from the tiles, after a short discussion with the client...here are some of my ideas.... Blogger has turned these two drawings sideways, I don't know why, and it's annoying me, but I cant fix it. Apologies to my readers.

The clients requested a bird image on each of the floorcloths, too..

In the end, they liked drawing No. 1, as did I!... they suggested a smaller bird motif...I amended the drawing as you can see here, and away we go!