Saturday 27 April 2013

I have been playing around with a new simple web site, not finished yet, as I will add more when I have time, but so easy to do! Please check it out, and leave me a comment to let me know what you think, plus a share on Facebook or wherever would be great....thanks.
http://www.artistanmurals.com/ 

Thursday 25 April 2013

Weathered cement lion....finished. 

Having sent an e-mail to my client with photos of the progression, to have a return e-mail saying she was thrilled and excited, I just put a few finishing touches and a couple of coats of matt varnish and done!!!



 

Wednesday 24 April 2013

Weathered cement lion project.

A client of mine had this old weathered cement lion in her garden in Corfu for years, then she came to me with the idea of mounting it in a frame of some sort so that she could hang it on the wall of her house. The idea came from the Corfiot winged lion, one of the symbols of Corfu and found at  the New Fortress in Corfu Town.





So I asked the help of my good and very talented friend Nick to make me a frame to mount the lion on that I could then paint and distress to look like stone. Having discussed the proportions and look of the frame Nick, a perfectionist, made me a perfect mount from MDF, and bless him, had been extremely careful in transporting it to my house not to dent it or damage it in any way. I think he would have been horrified to see me take my jig saw and a hammer to it in order to distress the perfect corners and edges!!


         
                                     Nick, putting the mount together, after transporting it in sections.



After I had given it a good beating, I undercoated the whole thing, and added sand in with the paint to give it a good texture.









Once dry, I took it outside to my work table in the garden to paint it as the weather is so beautiful. I then decided it was not textured enough, so I decided to apply filler with a paintbrush on large sections of the surface and then stipple and texture the filler surface whilst still wet.


Once this was dry I proceeded to paint.






 In order to get a really good weathered stone look, the layers, colours and textures of paint need to be built up slowly. But it started to look a bit more like stone at last......


I decided I would make the back surface look as though it was made of large stone blocks, just to give it a bit more interest, so I scraped into the filler and paint, bringing up the white undercoat, to make lines, then added some shadows to give the feeling of depth.



Time to bring the lion out to see if I have the colour and tones are right to fit with the lion.


  Not bad, but not quite happy with it yet, but enough for today. I will continue tomorrow, and maybe add a few lighter areas of paint.