Meet my sweet-petite Parisian Rocking-Chair.

She’s a lovely little thing, diminutive, charming, but she was horribly forlorn when I met her.  She was covered in a hideous brown paint, which did nothing to accentuate her curves, her graceful lines, and which utterly eclipsed her potential.

Except for me.  I could see a multitude of possibilities in her.

When I laid eyes upon her, I could hear her plaintive cry, “Oh please see me, please rescue me, please let the world see how beautiful I can become!”  I brought her home, and she’s been awaiting my paint-magic for a couple of years now.  I’ve apologized to her for how I used her rocker, upon which to hang my jacket (for she was stored upside-down), when I would enter the work-out/art shack to do the former. With a graceful shrug, she dismissed my apology — she loves being as functional as she is beautiful.

While priming her (I use a water/latex-based primer — once you’ve encountered oil-base primer, you’re stuck with it ’til you shed that layer of epidermis), I let her speak to me, about how she wanted to be.  She’s a little shy, so she didn’t want to be the star of the show, but she did want to shine in the spotlight just a wee bit.  Mostly, she wants to be foreverly-adored, by someone who shall fall in love with her.  She would love to become a family-heirloom.

Because I covet the high-metallic gleam that spray paint gives, I took her into my front yard, and sprayed some of the details with antiqued copper spray.  This set the stage for the rest of the magic to be revealed.

So, the first thing I did with acrylic paint, was to give her seat a stately faux-marble look.  I did this with a base of white, then swirls of many shades of grey on a paper plate, then pouncing that onto the seat with a damp sea-sponge.  Once dry, I brought in white veins, and accented them with black (using a detail brush).  I also marbleized her friend, the future “Fifty Shades of Grey” Chess Table (stay tuned for his story, in an upcoming blog post).

A deep burgundy shade (think of it as bold lipstick) was festooned upon her back, and legs … and a rich ebony black was used to bring in just a hint of mystery (like all of us, she has a shadow).  I painted the back spindles, and the side braces, with the black (as I did so, she mentioned how much fun the black would be with white dots, and I agreed).

She also wanted all of the white spaces to have bold, black stripes, which would match, yet counter, the black-with-white-dots.

Clearly, she’s as clever as she is beautiful!  I like that in my furnARTure.  😉

<—Here, you can see just how elegantly, yet playfully, those two patterns look, juxtaposed alongside each other, as well as how happily that antiqued-copper glows.

If you look closely, you’ll see more-white-dots-than-I-want-to-count, on many of the black lines.

As with all my art, this was truly a labor of love.

As I continued painting, and we continued schmoozing, she whispered to me that she’d love to have a fleur-de-lis (like the ones she’d seen on the previous Victorian Tea Cart), on her seat.  So I got to work …

<— Here’s the overall look, with the fleur de lis from a distance … and here’s how the fleur de lis looks, closer up. —>

First, I painted the shape in black.  Then added the copper band.  Then, I accented with metallic gold.  Then (because my details need details), I put tiny white dots around the edges.

The final step, was to add aquamarine to some “hidden” areas, and to also put aquamarine dots onto the burgundy parts … with gold accents on each of those dots.

Voila!  She is complete!

She, and all of her transformed-friends, shall be in my upcoming solo art show, “Everything Old is New Again,” for the month of March – at Lunaria Gallery, 113 Water St., Silverton, Oregon.  You’re invited to attend the opening, on Friday, March 4th, from 7:00-9:00pm.  I, and all of my recent creations, shall be there.  <3