Monday, June 27, 2011

Restored Metal Art

I got a call from a guy who had a piece of old metal art he wanted the colors restored on. (Thanks Paul, for the referral.) The piece hangs outside so it's pretty rusty and faded.

OMG!!! As soon as I saw this in the trunk of his car I knew I wanted to work on it. (We met in a Starbucks parking lot - he wanted to surprise his wife with it all finished.)

We negotiated a price and I left with it in the back of MY car. It looked like this:

 About 30" wide and a foot tall.

I had a bunch of earthy and bronze-y-orange metallics but nothing in the vibrant green I wanted for the gecko or shimmery blue I wanted for Kokopeli. So the next day (on our way to Camano Island for a vintage fair - more on that later) we went up to Daniel Smith in Seattle. Daniel Smith is a really amazing place for all kinds of art supplies. You can find them online here, but I'm lucky to have an actual store about an hour away. Really lucky, because I had absolutely no idea what I wanted, just a conviction that they'd have it. And thanks to Alice I got just exactly what the piece needed.

Here's how it turned out.















The angle and lighting are everything when I'm trying to photograph metallics, and because of the angle you can see the bling in one frame but not in another in the same pic. I intentionally left some of the rust, it wouldn't have cleaned up perfectly anyway and the piece has such a great patina. Now I just have to clear coat it and it's done.

I have the best job in the world.


2 comments:

  1. Amazing. You're so talented. It's always been like that. You're the talented one, I'm the smart one. Except you're smart, too. Oh, well, at least we look like you. So proud to be your twin. Now come paint something at my house out of sisterly love. You could paint the dog, Jenny, the ceiling, the mailbox. Whatever you want.

    Sooz

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  2. Beautiful work as always. You never cease to amaze.

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