They Are Such Fauxnys!

While Ed was gone this week, I worked on the faux painted carriage doors. After staring at pictures of real doors on the internet, I worked up the courage to paint the shadows. Amazingly, it worked!

My mantra was "underneath and on the right, underneath and on the right", thus putting the light source to the west which is where it is in real life. It did a fair job of making the doors look three dimensional...in a painty sort of way.

Remember all that glaze with black paint that was so horrible as the glaze coat for the rails and stiles? I used that stuff for these shadow lines. I taped the straight lines off, leaving about an inch, sponged on the lines and then immediately took off the tape..like it was sticking anyway...(see prior chapter). That way it wasn't a solid black line, but sort of mottled. I had to free-hand the curves, and with a sponge, it ain't easy.

Hallelujah! Sunshine this morning..at least after the fog burned off. By 0930, I was out with my paper handle and hinge stencils and went to work. I knew that trying to tape the stencils up and paint was not going to work, so I kind of held them up and drew them in with my trusty construction pencil. Once they were all drawn in, I took the black paint (unadulterated) and some cheapie art brushes and started in. No major problems there, except my stencilling wasn't always exactly the same for each one. How can that happen!!?? Oh yeah..the tape wouldn't stick and I drew them in. Once I got them all painted, I added a few details, like the screws and some curve marks on the handles. They still need some fine tuning with a teeny brush, but I'm pretty happy considering it was the first time I've ever done anything like this.

Which reminds me, tomorrow is Mother's Day, so it is time for a little motherly advise.

Just Try

I had never painted anything artistic...ever... No art classes in high school, convinced I couldn't draw. When I retired I told myself I would try new things, even if they sounded silly or hopeless. I signed up for a local Bob Ross painting class, and while the method isn't my favorite, the painting was a blast. I had a wonderful instructor, DeDee Crouse, who has since moved to Machias, New York and has opened up a business there, Black Sheep Art and Antiques. The moral of the story is, I was afraid to fail, and I wound up having a really good time.

Do they look so real that you'd reach out for the handle? No. But if you're that critical, you might want to go read some other blog. I'll come back with a little brush and neaten things up, make the door handles exaaaactly the same length..stuff like that.

In the meantime, from the road, the doors look pretty good...better than the white-on-metal that they were. Once the neighbors stop laughing, they can pass by with affection and say "Look what those people did to their garage door!"

Just wait until all the shingles are on! I can hardly wait. Oh..wait.. I'm the shingler. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice for the first part of the day, then cloud up and rain the rest of the week.