Painted Chairs

Earlier in the winter I painted a variety of wooden chairs, one with an upholstered seat.
They were all pretty much vintage, and the upholstered one, clearly an antique, probably late 19thC or early 20th C.


Actually this carved , below, one looks pretty old: maybe Art&Crafts, or "Bungalow" style, from the 20s or 30s.



Chairs are very fiddly; the rungs and spokes can drive you mad . They require a lot of patience and detailed observation.














These two are matching (well, sort of!) swivel chairs. Bar stool height.



















It was a lot of fun painting them, and they are beginning to find happy homes!
I have some pictures of the upholstry up next.

Cute Little Painted Bag

A sweet little canvas, rubber lined book bag, painted with fabric paints.

It was a lot of fun... here you can see it camouflaging itself to my work table!

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.