Don't forget to poke the photos to enlarge!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

First, Drink Lots of Coffee....

That's the first step in mini marbling.... No steady hands involved. I drank strong coffee whilst looking for examples of green marble on the net. I put "green marble" in Bing and got everything I needed.

I narrowed it down to these two. The one on the left was the one that went best for what I had in mind. The other one had too much blue in it.

I printed the two out just to be sure and taped them to the top of the fireplace, so that I would have something to look at as I painted.

Here you see my color pallet and the brushes that I used.

The colors were mostly greens, ochre, Old Parchment, white and brown in Ceramcoat Acrylics.

The brushes range from 1/4" flat, down to a 10/0 liner brush. A good liner about that size is essential if you are going to put fine veins in the marble. I also used a 3/0 and 5/0 for some areas.

I started with a base coat of Wedgewood Green and over that I used Black Green, Ochre, Old Parchment and Brown Velvet. mixing them as I went.

I use a lot of finger painting. That is, I put the color on with a brush and then dabbed at it with my finger to blend it into the background....This is not for people that don't like getting messy.

After it is really dry, I will hit the whole thing with Deft Satin Spray Varnish. Also Acrylic.

Last, but not least, I finished the shoes. I am going to have to go over the one on the top in some areas. My pen was running out of ink. There are a couple of labels on the shoes, but you can't read them without blowing them up. So don't forget to poke the photo.

I need to get back to the real world. The laundry needs changing from washer to dryer. Did I mention that I need a full time maid? I know....Dream on....

See you tomorrow.

4 comments:

Lucille said...

Wow, Casey! What beautiful work you did on that fireplace! It looks like real marble, like you cut out little pieces of marble and glued them on. And those shoes? I would buy shoes like that if I could and wear them proudly!

Caseymini said...

Lucille, I wear the shoes proudly. I was sneaky. I put the stupid comments on the inside of the shoes so that nobody would be reading them unless I wanted them to.LOL

Kathi said...

Even if I drank an entire pot of coffee, I don't think I could achieve what you did with the marble. Looks so real!

I'm still hoping that you will make more of these shoes! :D

Today I decided to change my project completely! About face! Now I'm looking for WHITe fabric. LOL

Minka said...

Very clever shoes!