I shut the door to the delivery guy, prized open the lid and started painting the side of a kitchen unit even though I was still in pyjamas. I'd been visualising this moment for so long, nothing was going to get in my way, such as eternal list of domestic tasks.
Here is my mood board Pimpernel place mats which I found in a charity shop.
I've taken against crusty dustiness, shadows and the recent past, including the colour of our 2 year old kitchen which I 'chose'. (However, the choice was limited, I wanted limed/whitened wood but was not available in France, although the same company did it in England (Howdens/Houdan) which was particularly painful). So I 'need' to enliven it by painting some wall units white and some floor units green.
Here is the first 'coat', don't panic
After 3 hours drying time, here is the 2nd coat which took off some of the first coat - I managed to cajole it into place a while later, continue not to panic - should have left it more than touch dry, and more than 3 hours.
The third coat, not panic so much as mild despair - it either reveals the wood effect below or goes on so thickly it drools, and there's no going back over it to correct, it breaks up the surface, rather like plastering.
Tested some wax, it took off the first, second and third coat, as did a gentle sanding.
Did a fourth coat and vowed not to touch until morning.
I love the wild green, it's raucous, yet somehow encourages all the other colours to bask in it's glow, and I wish I had open space for an item of feature furniture item in this colour. But in our house downstairs space is limited and possessions packed in, and it's pretty shady so the green glows in the dark, and and this green has made the whole open plan downstairs area look tatty by comparison. Unless I want to repaint everything including my husband, I must subdue it a little.
I already had some pigment powder, added a little ochre and blue to achieve colour required.
Mild despair has lifted, labour-of-love intensive project though.
With Great Self-Restraint, left it overnight again.
As I waited for the layers to dry, I used the leftover scrapings and brushloads to re-do a chair which was thrown out by the neighbours. Here the paint comes into its own, glooping over the mouldings and creating delicious textures and colour variations. I even risked waxing it without leaving it overnight, as I was desperate to see if my coloured yellow wax and blue wax would adjust the colour to perfection, which it did. (I had already painted the straw seat with left over emulsion).
The next day I started with a little Attitude adjustment; this is not painting a cupboard, this is creating a work of art. My dulling down had worked a little too well, and this new green was not sociable with the other colours in the room, and was even a little grumpy. I did some colour fine-tuning with layers of coloured wax; yellow to soften, then blue to green it up a bit, and finally, white with a touch of Antibes Green to 'lift' and lighten it again (all waxes I mixed myself, from some leftover wax from a basement tadelakt project years ago, the yellow and blue with powdered pigments, the 'white' with some white paint and Antibes green paint mixed in).
When I began to polish off the wax coats, I noticed that the paint, in a kind of 'shrink wrap' drying process had moulded into the wood grain of the veneer, and honoured it's lines. It was evolution of the original surface rather than eradication, gentle and sensitive transformation. It was reminding me of the faux marble I saw in the Vatican Museum in Rome. It's a sort of wood marbling...
Now I'm happy, and polishing it to a soft gloss is an honour and a pleasure. I can stare endlessly at the texture and colour variations which go to make up the whole surface.
Conclusions; this paint is challenging and capricious, requires all my senses and intelligence to respond to it and make it work, but replies to my deepest longings and is utterly rewarding, I would like to surround myself with the whole range - but how?
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