I’m doing something a bit differently … I’m sharing the journey, mid-process, as I work on the next piece for the upcoming solo art show, “Everything Old is New Again” – for the month of March at Lunaria Gallery, in Silverton, Oregon.

Sharing mid-process allows me to get the “oohs & ahhs” that spur me on whilst-weary, and also gives me a break from all the required stooping-and-bending-and-squatting that’s required to transform this from forlorn to fabulous.

Y’gotta get in some awkward positions in order to create worthwhile art, y’all!

Here’s how he looked when I met him, in a local Goodwill store. 
Yes, he’s a reproduction – don’t judge.
Think of him as a highly ornate, 3-dimensional canvas.

Yes, his finish was in a good condition, and some of you wood-purists now have the heebie-jeebies that I would “desecrate” the wood.

But I got to him first … and he wanted to be painted.  😉

All’s fair in love, war, and art.  ^_^

For more than a year he lived in my work-out/art shack.  We’d size each other up while I worked out.  He clearly commanded prominence amongst the other yet-to-be-painted items, in that quietly regal and confident way of his.

Yes, he needed a bit of TLC — his door was wonky, and wouldn’t stay shut — turns out the magnets weren’t connecting, because the back of the clock’s case had come loose, and he had a bit of a shimmy.

If there’s one thing y’don’t want a grandfather clock to do, it’s to shimmy … though it would be good if he’d occasionally vacuum or unload the dishwasher …

He’s also missing a winding-key — so I had to do a bit of sleuthing, to find out what size key he uses.  Turns out there are a vast majority of key-sizes for these clocks.  Being a reproduction, his internal chains and weights are for show-only – though he does have a working pendulum (all of which I removed, prior to priming/fixing).

I found out that he’s an Aeon 31-Day Clock (I have a lovely relationship with that word, which means “age” or “eon”), in the Chippendale style (ahhh, so there’s a reason he was wanting to shimmy!).  I called a local clock repair shop (which advertised they’d been in business for 45 years, so I figured they knew everything, clock-wise, right?).

Turns out I got to play “stump the clock-fixer.”  Turns out they’d never heard of this brand.  Hours later, after they did their sleuthing, they determined that this clock wears a size 11 key — which I shall be securing (after I find the best price, and/or most ornate key).

Then it was time to repair the back of the case (wood-glue to the rescue), prime it (got help taking it downstairs, and back upstairs), and then back down again, in order to paint various components high-shine gold — to match the gold already in his face.  I taped off the front glass door, and the glass side panels (both sides of the surfaces), as well as the clock face, and the door over the clock face.  Whew!  Lots taping!  NOT my favorite part … but I usually scrape off all the glass, after the fact, and I wanted to know if this ends up being faster, and more effective – stay tuned on that.

Then it was time to commune with the clock, to learn what he wanted most to be.  He let me know that he wants to be regal masterpiece … I got a vision of much elegant (yet exotic) faux-marble … much black … copper checks on the gold stripes … and I knew that the rest of the vision would emerge, as I went.

Here, he’s lounging, awaiting the wood-glue to dry (this took hours, in each position).

Here’s what I’ve done with him, so far, today … though I intend to do much more:

A close-up of the copper checks on the sprayed-on gold.

And then I painted the inside of him flat-black, cutting in on the previously gold-sprayed areas.

I had to get upside-down, with my head inside the coffin-like case, in order to get black into the very bottom of the case.

Then, I painted all the ares in which I intended to transform into marble, flat-black, as a base:

  And thennnnnn, it was time to apply multiple shades of blue, green, aqua, turquoise and copper, onto the black, for the marble.  Next … I’ll bring in sheer/pearlized aqua for back-veining, and white with black shadows, for the main veins.

Who knows what’s next?  I can’t wait to find out! 🙂