Pen & Ink Work on Wood

An old technique for decorating wood .

Prepare wood by sanding smooth & seal with sanding sealer.

I used Indian ink in black and some staining with red/orange.

The box was just a cheap  unfinished one I picked up at Ikea. The blocks were just bits of old wood I had hanging around - so it works on new or old material so long as the preparation is good.

The two floral patterns came from some research into William Morris's work

Not sure what inspired me to do this one though but it's quite cool.

Glass Painting - but not as you know it 2

This is glass sponge painted with spirit based glass paint.

Sponged onto the outside of the bowl

Pretty but could be more...

These started in the same way and  then painted with gold spirit based paint over the top of the glass paint.

These again benefit from displaying where the sun can shine onto and through them.

Glass Painting - but not as you know it 1

Traditional glass painting is usually done on glass using a relief out-liner & a pattern and infilling the 'panes' you create. There are some very nice acrylic glass paints now that you can use, without the out-liners, that work more like ordinary paint but they aren't as resilient and require a certain amount of artistic talent to paint with. These are not really my style.

However...

This is.

It takes glass painting to a different level

A humble Pyrex Glass plate is prepared using a propriety product for surface preparation to enable you to bond emulsion paint to the glass. In this case I used: ESP (Easy Surface Prep.) by O.I.C. (Olugtrol Int. Corp.), Olsen Wang A.S., Norway.

It was then painted it with red emulsion paint which you can see from the back of the plate here

I then gold leafed it using a traditional size & metallic gold leaf.

I distressed it a bit in patches by sanding gently using very fine aluminium sanding paper and then sponged on spirit dyes in reds & greens.

Finally I varnished to preserve the finish. 

It looks fantastic on a plate stand in a window so the sun shines though it.

Fred the Head

I spent 4 years doing two City & Guilds Paint Effects courses at Askham Bryan College in York where I painted everything that wasn't nailed down.  I eventually taught Paint Effects,  Interior Design and lots of design, sewing, embroidery & paper crafts etc. in Adult Education. Fred was one of my more fun non utilitarian objects. Some of the others may appear in later posts as I unearth them.

In his previous life he was a polystyrene mannequin head. Now he's been verdigrised with acrylic and emulsion paint and looks rather handsome on the landing window sill.

The aquiline nose and stunning cheek bones are to die for! The dent on his nose occurred when he was knocked off one day and bounced down the stairs. Thankfully he isn't real bronze otherwise there may have been more serious damage!