Painted Initials

I also painted two letters to hang in my home.  I purchased them at Michael's and both were made of unfinished wood.  I painted the B with two coats of acrylic fuchsia and then added white polka dots once it had dried.  For the J, I traced the width of a ruler to create the stripes and then painted one coat of the green, two coats of the silver (which appears light blue in the photo).  Once both had dried, I sealed with a satin varnish.

Painting a Chair

On Saturday, I found two chairs that have been bumping around our house for some time and decided to spruce them up a bit.  I probably should have prepped them first, but I was too eager to begin painting.

I painted vines along the legs before realizing I had no idea what I was planning to do.  So I googled images of painted chairs and found an image of a beautiful Stargazer Lilly.  I attempted to follow the same shape as the model I found online, but the shading (or lack thereof in my case) was different, as were the details.

I attempted to copy it with no artistic experience but plenty of motivation and time.  The final result?

Both chairs were painted white when I began; I believe they were originally orange, because there are orange spots where the paint has flecked off:

I began by outlining the flower petals, first in pencil and then in white acrylic paint:

Next I filled in the outlines with fuchsia acrylic paint:

As I worked, I also added darker pink veins through the petals:

I then filled in the center white with green, giving the flower a solid stem to support each petal:

I added a brighter green to make the stem more dimensional:

Finally, I added dark pink dots to each leaf (a shade between the fuchsia petals and the dark pink veins), clustering more towards the base of each petal:

Two chairs:

After finishing the vines on the second chair, I coated both with a satin varnish to protect them.  

The vines on the legs and back actually took longer to paint than the flowers!  I had a great time designing and creating these and hope to come across more old furniture to decorate.