van Gogh Furniture Paintology Headboard and Footboard

Transcription

1 How to create the French Princess Bed with van Gogh Furniture Paintology Headboard and Footboard

2 Step 1 Prepare your bed to receive Fossil Paint. In most cases, I would simply apply the Fossil Paint directly to the clean furniture surface with no more prep than a soapy dishwater wipe down, but this was piece needed prep. Always do a scratch test first to determine if more prep is required. INSERT LINK TO SCRATCH TEST HERE This bed was made somewhere around the 1940 s or so. Often, dye was used during this period to colour treat the wood. The dye should be sealed in with some kind of varnish. However, in many cases, the varnish has deteriorated to a point where the dye can permeate the varnish if any water is applied to the surface. Our paint is water-based. The water in the paint can reactivate the dye and cause it to leach through the paint up to the surface causing unsightly stains in your finish. One way to test if this is the case is to wash your piece with soapy dishwater. If the cloth keeps coming away with a discolouration on it, you know that s the dye and you will have to seal it in prior to painting. In my case, I decided to remove the old varnish first because some of it was kind of sticky and who knows what was on that bed (YUCK!) So I started my prep with what I call my DEFCON 1 level of prep: quick sanding. I sanded it with 220 grit sandpaper and wiped it down with soapy dishwater. You can see that I sanded in the direction of the grain of the wood. 1 DEFCON LEVEL 1 PREP Sanding in progress

3 After sanding, my piece was fine so it didn t require any further prep. If your piece is still creating a discoloured cloth when you wipe it, proceed to DEFCON LEVEL 2 of prep, which is to prime your piece. TIP: have your local paint store tint your primer to a colour close to the Fossil Paint you re going to use if possible. If not possible, have them tint it to a warm grey colour. Step 2 Apply van Gogh Furniture Facelift To create the look of carved wood, pull our Furniture Makeup product called Furniture Facelift through a stencil. It has amazing adhesion and is an archival high quality acrylic. Our Furniture Makeup line has many products in it that live and play happily with all our other products and allows you to go beyond the everyday painted finish. I have these beautiful stencils I got from Cutting Edge Stencils. These designs are taken directly from the walls of the Palais Versailles in France and I love them and use them often. INSERT CUTTING EDGE LINK. For the footboard, I used the Versailles Border and for the Headboard, I used a combination of the Versailles Border and part of the Marie Antoinette Grand Panel. Tape the stencil in place. Load a spatula tool with van Gogh Furniture Facelift. It s tinted to the colour of old wood so that if you distress through the Fossil Paint to reveal the Furniture Facelift, it looks like old carved wood. Pull the Furniture Facelift through the stencil at a 45 degree angle. Make sure you get good contact with the furniture underneath so it will adhere well. Pull this first coat thin and tight so that you can see the stencil through the plaster. Immediately apply a second coat of Furniture Facelift to build up a thick coat of plaster. This is called Bas Relief. Remove the stencil immediately taking care not to smear your work. 2 Using only part of the Marie Antoinette stencil for the headboard Wash the stencil immediately in warm soapy water.

4 Here is the headboard after applying the Furniture Facelift through part of the Marie Antoinette stencil 3 After applying Furniture Facelift through stencil Allow the Furniture Facelift to dry.

5 For the headboard, I wanted to use a combination of the two stencils so after this first design dried, I taped the Versailles Border stencil in place and applied the Furniture Facelift through that to achieve my final design. Here it is after I pulled the Furniture Facelift through the Versailles Border stencil as well. You can see that the first design is darker because it has dried and the scroll I added is still wet and therefore lighter in colour. You can also see my scratch test on the lower left side of the piece. You can see that I tested it on both pieces of wood that the headboard is made from. Step 3 Sand the Furniture Facelift After the Furniture Facelift has dried overnight, give it a light sanding with 220 grit sandpaper to remove sharp points and raised edges around the outside of each opening in the stencils. Those openings are called windows. Failure to remove those is a dead giveaway that this was created with a stencil and is not carved wood. Ensure that you have removed all sanding dust. I use an old chip brush to brush away the dust.

6 Step 4 Apply Fossil Paint in the main colour I used our SQUEE-EASY method of painting. Check back on our blog for our infomercial for SQUEE- EASY it s a tongue in cheek pretend advertisement, but you ll get the idea. You can use a brush or a roller, but rollers do not apply the Fossil Paint as thickly as needed so you ll have to apply more coats if you use a roller. Apply paint more thickly than you would if you were using regular house paint. One of the main advantages of using van Gogh Fossil Paint is that it has fantastic levelling properties which gives you a smooth silky finish. If you apply the Fossil Paint too thinly, there isn t enough product to level out and smooth away brush strokes, but too thickly, and it could sag. Consult your local Paintologist for a workshop or more instructions if necessary. INSERT LINK TO PAINTOLOGIST PAGE Here I used two coats of van Gogh Fossil Paint in the colour First Kiss which is a very lovely soft pink, and painted the entire headboard and footboard. Allow to dry. Step 5 Apply Fossil Paint in accent colour I used an artist brush to apply our Fossil Paint in the colour Compassion a darker more vintage dusty pink colour to the top scroll edge and to the legs of the headboard and footboard. I didn t even need to be too careful because the First Kiss was quite dry, so if I messed up and got the Compassion where I didn t want it, I simply wiped it away gently with the damp cloth I had with me. Finesse and uptightness not required here! Allow to dry. Step 6 Highlight areas with van Gogh Liquid Metals Replace the stencil over the raised areas and tape down into place with painters tape. My favourite is 3M brand blue tape with the orange core. This tape sticks well but will not ruin your paint finish. Dip a stencil brush into our van Gogh Liquid Metals in the Colour To the Bride. It s a lovely pearly white metallic. Off load paint onto a paper towel and the swirl brush over the windows in the stencil. This will apply To the Bride only to the raised areas. If you neglect to offload the excess paint onto paper towel, you may get paint bleeding under the edge of the stencil, or you will see swirl marks in your paint application which looks amateur. Use an artist s brush to apply To the Bride to the legs and any other areas you want to highlight. Allow to dry. Apply a second coat if you think it s necessary. I only applied one coat.

7 Here is a close up shot of the finish after the To the Bride has been applied to the raised areas. Step 7 Seal the finish with our Beeswax Furniture Finish I applied our Natural Beeswax Furniture Finish. We also have an antique Beeswax that we colour with a mixture of pigments we import from Europe and add to our Natural Beeswax while it is in a molten state to create just the right warmth and anitque colour. In this case though, I used our Natural Beeswax which enriches the colour of our Fossil Paint and provides a protective coat and feels and looks wonderful. One of the best properties of our Beeswax Furniture Finish is that is nontoxic and safe for baby toys!

8 Load a round stencil brush with van Gogh Beeswax Furniture Finish and vigourously rub it INTO the paint, not just ONTO the paint. Wipe off excess wax with a soft lint free clean cloth. Allow to dry an hour or more then buff. To buff, use a very light touch. You want to swiftly rub back and forth over the wax to create a bit of friction heat that remelts the wax ever so slightly, then you want to buff it up to a hand rubbed shine by quickly moving your cloth over the surface with as much pressure as you apply moisturizer to your face. In other words, barely barely skimming the surface. You do not need to apply much pressure, in fact, too much pressure will just make a sticky mess. You don t have to kill yourself, a few light strokes over the suface is all you need. Step 8 Pat yourself on the back and have a glass of wine You ve earned it you fantastic furniture refinisher! Brava! With gratitude, Kathy van Gogh Kathy@FossilPaint.com