It was a bit of a suprise to have comments left on my last post - thankyou!
It was a new idea I was trialing. I was also thrilled about the positive comments on my original painting of the Girl on the Bike. To be quite honest I hadn't planned her to turn out like that - although I must say I do have an attachment to her. I had planned to paint a Girl actually riding on a bike, I can't tell you how confused I got, plus the fact I don't sketch before I paint - just full on get the brushes out and away I go, that's all very well with roses and my china tea cups etc. .... but I think figures probably need to be sketched first, I ended up dragging an old bike inside from behind our shed - cobwebs, spiders and all, I used it for my prop, then had to just imagine the girl, at this stage it was way to hard to paint all the angles of her riding a bike, so ended up with her walking the bike....I quite love the end result
I've had this new idea ticking over in my mind ~ don't you love the weathered old cane baskets?, but finding them is very hard, there's loads of newish, over stained, over laquered ones around - yes I have repainted them to look silvery and old, but I though hmmmm, what about dipping them in Caustic soda - now that is a Dangerous word "Caustic Soda" - when we very first started stripping back furniture which come to think of it was about 20 plus years ago, the best, quickest, most effective way was to dip something in caustic soda - please don't do this unless you carefully read up on the dangers and how to use caustic soda, not only can it make your skin disappear it can turn certain types of timber a strange orange colour, whereas some come out looking absolutely wonderful. It also can make glue disappear, so I'm not sure how much glue is left to keep my basket together, never mind, the basket didn't end up coming out as silvery as I hoped so I ended up giving it a few coats of whitesh paint - I think it will be OK for a display at our market tomorrow
While I was at it I gave the one below a dip and repainted it white
and soaked the bottom of this Vintage First Aid cabinet, it was so greasy - only thing is as you can see in the photo below, the caustic not only took the grease off but the paint too!
I came across these sweet little reproduction door hanger signs, all I did was add some little hand painted roses to add an individual touch, I think they look lovely displayed in the "Caustic" basket
I have a load of Napkins I washed today and will put up for sale in the next few days - I do love them - but I just can't keep keeping everything!!
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