After a dull month of dark whether (well, not so much for SollyJo and her Florida trip) negative news stories and the looming of the mysterious virus, a few us could have done with a pick-me-up.
And that is exactly what happened for 5 people on Sunday 15th March.
SollyJo and her regular, well-loved visitor Sue Parson’s hosted a ‘Techniques Buffet’ Workshop
Appropriately named due to the fact that it was just a bit of everything, however the focus was mostly on blending and furniture restoration.
There was a total of three in attendance for this intimate class. Tracy, Laura and Marion; who had travelled over two hours to make it to the workshop that morning!
All three ladies brought their own pieces to work with,
Marion: a small dainty dresser mirror with some lovely carving up the spiers that held it in place (left) .
Tracy: one plain bedside table with drawers looking to be from the XX era.
Laura: a retro, curvy set of drawers, coming straight out of the 70’s (right).
SollyJo focused some of her efforts on the larger pieces whereas Sue worked round the clock with Marion alone focusing on the more intricate areas around the mirror.
Both Tracy and Marion opted for similar colour pallets using Dixie Belle’s Apricot, Flamingo, Plumb Crazy, and Drop Cloth, whereas Laura wanted a darker piece using an autumn palate of Caviar and Rusty Nail.
All three women used SollyJo’s signature blending technique to merge their multitude of colours and they worked wonderfully!
For three amateurs to the blending technique, they all took to the method quite well creating almost seamless blending between the three pieces.
Tracy had the most challenging blend of the three when attempting to blend four different colours creating a beautiful in-out fade from Drop Cloth to Barn Red and back to Drop Cloth again.
Both Tracy and Marion’s pieces were blinged up with some WoodUbend, Tracy chose a small intricate design to encircle her top handle.
Marion’s Dresser mirror used a TR50a around the frame and the 339 Flower to punctuate it at the top. The flower moulding was hand-painted with dark greens and pinks to bring it to life and then brushed over with Lemon Gold Posh Pigment, completing the piece.
Tracy and Laura added flower transfers trailing the sides of their drawers, but not before they printed some stencils below them. Tracy used a stick-on floral pattern and Laura used lines in a crosshatch like design to create the effect of a trellis for the transferred flowers to climb.
The hardware for the pieces were also finished off with the Posh Pigments, Tracy brushed over hers with a snazzy silver to create a shadowing effect on the handles and Laura coated hers with a Copper Posh Pigment.
The two end projects flourished with the flower designs!
And all three ladies couldn’t be happier with the furniture they got to take home to brighten up their rooms.
