The Painting Saga of an Abstract Face On a Birdhouse and Tray!

Items to paint - a wood birdhouse
amd a wooden tray

I am trying something new in my blog. I will try to give a day by day work in progress report on the creation of two new projects using similar designs and colors but on two radically different surfaces. I will be using a wooden tray and a mushroom shaped birdhouse (with a plastic top)  while trying to use a similar design and colors.

Because the objects are so different it will be a challenge to keep designs similar. I think my object here is to show how the same design becomes something different on different surfaces and media. It is always good to have more than one project so the first project is dry when you come back to it. 

As for the media I found the mushroom birdhouse at Aldi for $7.99 ( I should have bought them all as I can't find more) and the tray at Michael's years ago. I think it was part of a nesting set.

DAY ONE

I got both surfaces ready for painting. I removed the plastic top of the birdhouse as I will make no attempt to change that. I did light sanding of the wood surface on the birdhouse but found it was already quite smooth and needed little additional work.

The tray needed sanding especially on the corners and edges. I then sprayred a flat black enamel paint on in inside and outside rails and vaguely around the bottom allowing some of the wood to show. This took several coats as the wood was porous and soaked up the paint. I decided to not seal the wood first though I probably should have. While opaque paints cover well, more transparent paint like yellows, oranges and reds often need two coats, or more, to cover well.

Pencil outlined  birdhouse

After thoroughly dry, the black paint needs sanding as it brings up the grain of the wood. Then it's time to draw the pattern.

Depending on the base color i use a regular lead pencil to sketch out the design. On dark surfaces white lead pencils show the design better. Once your design is laid out the painting can begin.

Paint selection can be  tricky. I used to gather paints I thought I would use but found while the colors looked good together in the bottles, the actual paint didn't. REMEMBER, all acrylic paints dry a shade darker! Now I grow the colors organically laying one down then considering what the next should be. You often come up with amazing, even startling combinations you would have never chosen. I love color and especially the interplay between them.

The adding of color to the outlines.

Ending with day one painting

As you can see, with several coats of paint colors the pattern begins to emerge. The beauty of this is when you finish one piece you can paint another. When done you can start a new color on the first piece as the acrylic paint is usually dry.

DAY TWO

Today, as you continue to paint, you continue the background colors in the larger blocked areas. For me this is always a time of uncertainty. Am I using the "right" colors, is the layout right, "How does it look?" Realizing, of course, the differences in size, scale and color, this angst becomes worse.

Painting is a bit messy

The biggest challenge here is the wide difference a 2D surface presents to 3D. Round vs. flat! You can see both items share common elements but already they are beginning to change.

As the number of colors grow the workbench begins to fill up with paints, markers, paper towels all needed to clean, paint or outline various portions of the project . Believe me, it doesn't take much time for this list to grow. 

Since many colors don't cover well another layer of color is often needed. I'm sure another artist reading this would suggest a sealer layer over the entire project first before painting and I'm beginning to consider that good advice. While some paint can cover in one coat, because of the absorbancy of wood, other paints can require another coat or two. In the past  I have used an opaque creme colored paint as an undercoat and then put the colors I want on top of that. It works well and I should have used it here. I was led astray by trying to record this daily (or actual working day). I wanted colors to pop up immediately.

I use mostly DecoArt paints with a smattering of Folk Art. Their paint are thicker with more pigment and I find I need a bit of water to use them successfully. I have started using Uni POSCA acrylic paint pens and they give me the ability to "paint" lines I can't with a brush. Eighty year old hands are not as steady anymore.

My black lines are made with Sharpie Fine Point pens. Their black is dense and pretty much doesn't run later when adding an acrylic varnish to seal the artwork. Again it allows me to create steady lines plus reach into areas I can't with a brush.

I use, despite ALL the brushes I have, two rather grubby brushes. One, that I use to outline painted area like the photo above is a thin round bristled brush. Because, this style doesn't have big areas, I use a battered old flat brush to fill in the outlined areas. As you can see it seems to work.

Spaces between colors is good.

I wanted to show a close-up of the paints as I paint them next to each other. I don't worry about them touching or leaving a small space between them as I will outline each with a thick black stroke. I will work with this line later. After working with another technique on my second Abstract Face Birdhouse I found just a harsh black line not "enough." I will show this technique later. I feel it softens the line and makes the overall design craggier!

You might ask," Well, how long does this all take?" The short answer is hours. I have a TV on my work bench and listen to rather than watch shows. Currently I'm in about Season 14 of a BBC show, HEARTBEAT. Or, I listen to classical music on the radio or from my CD's. When I am painting, or some may call it crafting, the real world with all its political worries is far away. I've also found that when I'm away too long, I get grumpy and impatient. Painting is my senior therapy.

The results after Day Two!

DAY FOUR

Black bottom!

Day Four was a cleaning up and finishing up. All blank spaces on both the tray and birdhouse needed to be completed. The bottom of the birdhouse was painted black so I could add a golden spiral on it so that it would complete the all around design. Once this was completed then use a Sharpie Fine Point marker, which is not very fine, every color is drawn around an homage to cubist painting techniques.

Once all the outlining ingredients is done then any other details are added such as glitter glue on red or green paints, truly extra fine markers for other details and element and finally in stages a black oil pastel is lightly drawn over every black line and "smudged" with a smudging stick.

Starting the smudge.

I did my first abstract face cubist birdhouse without this step and while I liked it I realized it was a bit harsh, especially after seeing paintings by Picasso and others. The smudged lines soften the lines and add a kind of aging to the work I found appealing. Always accused of being "too" realistic I found a way of creating a more impressionistic image. And it can work on pedestrian objects like trays and birdhouses. As you can imagine, after outlining this takes even more time and this is just about where the time went on day four.

Here is the tray nearly completed.

You can see the lines are smudged, glitter glue is in place and small details were added. Many of the same elements and all colors were used on the birdhouse yet because a 2D and 3D objects are so different they can only share features differently.

DAY FIVE

Finished birdhouse

Spiral is added

Both items are finished. The last details are added and everything is sprayed with an acrylic varnish to keep all materials: acrylic paint, puffy paint, markers, acrylic pen paint and glitter glue from running when a final acrylic varnish is put on the protect the surfaces from the elements, i.e., hung outside for the birdhouse and washed for the tray.

One of the things I added to the tray was an eye on the outside rail on one side and lips on the other. I felt these elements tied the tray to the fully painted inside making sure it wasn't an after thought. It is very east to over work a design and often takes great restraint not too. 

The finished tray with all elements in place

Here is an angle view of the tray with the guiding eye:

I hope you have enjoyed my daily progress project report. As you can see, no project is "easy" and yet it can be a time where the worries of your world are held at bay with something that gives you pleasure!

Alan

Thank you for reading my blog! Please be sure to visit on a regular basis or contact me at KrugsStudio@gmail.com. New blogs are added all the time. In conjunction  with my store I feel that “design” is an important part of our lives. Everything we use or live by was designed by someone. Please tell your friends, artists or anyone who appreciates design about my blog.

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