Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mini Monday plus a day - Guest Room


I've missed the last 2 Monday's . . . life gets like that sometimes. Today I'll catch up by showing you both sides of the Guest Room. I wanted it to be a peaceful, soft green, but I found out early on that paint does not go on the walls well, even after a base coat of gesso. So now I always line the walls with watercolour paper before I paint. I wanted one wall to be wallpaper, and I decided it would be fun to make my own. I did a background acryilc wash in a warm cream, and then did the stripes and floral columns in shades of greens with colored pencil. I made the door and trim and painted them (and all other trim in the room) a pale almond to keep the room soft and restful. The door knob is a craft pearl painted gold, and the hinges are tiny brass ones that nearly made me crazy trying to put them on. The floor is done with narrow craft sticks, painted in acrylic washes to look like pine, and then glazed several times. Everything is a 1/12 scale of course.
While I was doing the leading on the window glass in this room (a diamond grid printed on clear acetate and then gone over with a fine tipped marker), I made a smudge. No problem, I'll just sponge it off, I thought. But the acetate started to melt just slightly, making the smudge even worse. The heavy acetate with the light one on top was already in the window frame, so I had a problem on my hands. To solve it, I got out my acrylic paint and painted a "stained glass" wisteria over the smudged area and took it beyond so it would look as if I had meant to do it in the first place. Of course I did!