On a recent outing to our favorite spot, our local ReStore, I found an original watercolor painting that was framed and I loved it. Watercolors is a medium I've never been able to conquer but I'm in love with the inherent softness achieved with them so I bought it! The $30 price tag was a bit steep but I was in luck because red tags were 75% off that week. SCORE!
I was in love with the picture but the frame itself had a lot to be desired. It was just a plain. As we made out way through the store I found another stack of pictures and found this ugly sailboat picture that used to hang in our Red Lobster. It was $15 and another red tag 75% discount score. The picture was alright if you're a sailing kind a person I suppose, but the frame was beautiful! It had little holes all around it where they nailed it to the wall but they were fixable. I eyeballed them both and judged them to be the same size so I figured a little paint and this frame would be perfect for this watercolor.
I used my white chalk paint left over from the bench project for the first two coats, then I made up a green that was the same color as a green in the painting and covered the white with green. I thought revealing the white beneath the green would look great!
WRONG
I put it aside for a few days and then decided to recover it with white and reveal a little green beneath. I've been seeing different techniques for distressing and one of them was to use Vaseline where you don't want paint to stick and thought I'd try it. Discovering we had none, and I wasn't buying any to smear on my furniture. I remembered something I'd had success with in the past, and that is to use a candle to coat areas in wax that paint won't adhere too, so I waxed my frame kinda willy nilly. I covered the green with another layer of white and when dried I sanded it lightly and all my green bits began to come through! I coated it with a few coats of wax and buffed it to a sheen but I still wasn't happy with it. I then tried a little glaze and did a little more sanding and I think I'm happy with it now.
Of course my eyeballing judgement was off as they weren't the same size, the watercolor was about 1/2 inch larger then the sailboat so I had to do a little nip and tucking to get it to fit. I really like the end result!
Now, where to hang it!
