Here's a mirror I picked up at an antique store sale for $3.50. I liked the intricate metal lace that ran around the edges. It's a heavy sturdy well-made wood with a wood backing. And I saw that it had a LOT of potential. It was very dark and boring and I wanted to wake it up and bring it to life.  I woke up in the middle of the night and thought "TEAL"! So the next day I mixed my paints and glazes and finally got just the color I'd envisioned. I think the color looks very Mexico (my fav) and the antiquing turned out just the way I wanted. I left some blops and scratches did the paint in a very thin wash. Then I glazed over it all, metal and all, with a smooth medium clear finish. When it's dry, I'll take the mirror out and throw it away, squeeze and glue and nail a couple of separated corners, and VOILA! A shabby frame suitable for the new cactus flower painting that I'm working on. I'll post again when the whole thing comes together. 

  



I'm hoping to pick up more frames like this and do a yellow, orange, red, and other bright Mexican colors to hang grouped together with other cactus and plant paintings. I did a lot of photography yesterday so I have plenty of refernce material; and I've got one big beautiful cactus bloom sketched out. 

I really want to keep this frame for myself (greedy me); but on the other hand, I'm hoping to shabby more frames now that I've got the mixture I like. So I might sell this one when the cactus is done. I can envision it hanging in an adobe style house or one with lots of light and white tinted walls. Hey, sorta like mine ;) 

What do you think of the color? Comments welcome!

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Since I've started my very first bright shiney new LiveJournal page, I'm going to try to post a freebie for other artists to use when I can. Here's a free photo of a cactus bloom. Have at it and use for inspiration in your art. I'd be interested to see if any other artists use this and what your painting from it looks like. If I can figure out how to do it, I'd post you painting here in my blog along with this photo. Listen to me, urging you artists on with big talk, when in all actuality, I might not even get MY painting of a cactus flower done!