I have a set of unpainted Matryoshka dolls on the way, obviously! Who could resist? I haven't decided how to paint them yet. I also have a box on the way on which I plan to paint a set of carousel horses. It's a square box, not a cylinder, so the fun will be in painting the horses in all positions from head-on to sideways to rear-view, on all four sides, and then decking each one in every interesting caparison I can find a picture of.
Merchants on Etsy sell old beat-up Russian chess sets that I think will be suitable for painting. I'm particularly thinking of painting not only the chessmen but the chessboards whose wood veneer is too damaged to think about preserving. The light squares could be sky scenes and the dark squares any number of things. That should keep me off the streets for a while. If my husband was thinking about regaining the use of our dining table any time soon, he's sure to be disappointed.
I'm hoping to get the hang of the right kind of fine brush and the right combination of paint, oil, and thinner to allow really miniature effects, which seems to be what lights me up the most.
Lucky guess. I used to have my Russian translator bring them back from Moscow when I was working in Kazakhstan. I've got a couple versions of the Soviet leaders starting back through Gorbachev (Yeltsin, Brezhnev, etc), and another that's a traditional Matryoshka. The Soviet leaders versions were very popular after the collapse of the USSR. I dunno....US Presidents aside, maybe Dallas Cowboys coaches? Period-correct cowboys going back to Texas Independence? Country music stars (good luck getting Dolly to fit)?
I have a set of unpainted Matryoshka dolls on the way, obviously! Who could resist? I haven't decided how to paint them yet.
If you paint them with a mix of Tempera and Bab-O (or some other powder cleanser; I suspect Comet would work), then you can periodically wash the paint off and do another pattern. This assumes the dolls start out varnished, or otherwise waterproofed, so the paint doesn't soak into the wood and permanently stain the dolls.
We had a big, street-facing picture window in our house when I was growing up, and every Christmas season, we'd paint a scene on the window with that mix. Cleaning off the scene at the end of the season also got the window its annual cleaning.
You've plainly got the talent to do the artwork, whether dolls, or chess pieces, or murals. Might be bad form for a politician in your neck of the woods to go running around tagging buildings, though.
I won't be a politician for much longer. I didn't file for re-election, and my term ends at the end of 2022.
Murals are very appealing. I saw this ravishing glass-tile mosaic mural in the Houston airport decades ago. https://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/mosaic-airport-mural-houston-bayou-mosaic-artist-dixie-friend-gay-houston-texas/
7 comments:
What a festive chess set. I used to play chess often, but it's been a long time since I had a partner.
Next up: Matryoshka dolls!
I have a set of unpainted Matryoshka dolls on the way, obviously! Who could resist? I haven't decided how to paint them yet. I also have a box on the way on which I plan to paint a set of carousel horses. It's a square box, not a cylinder, so the fun will be in painting the horses in all positions from head-on to sideways to rear-view, on all four sides, and then decking each one in every interesting caparison I can find a picture of.
Merchants on Etsy sell old beat-up Russian chess sets that I think will be suitable for painting. I'm particularly thinking of painting not only the chessmen but the chessboards whose wood veneer is too damaged to think about preserving. The light squares could be sky scenes and the dark squares any number of things. That should keep me off the streets for a while. If my husband was thinking about regaining the use of our dining table any time soon, he's sure to be disappointed.
I'm hoping to get the hang of the right kind of fine brush and the right combination of paint, oil, and thinner to allow really miniature effects, which seems to be what lights me up the most.
Lucky guess. I used to have my Russian translator bring them back from Moscow when I was working in Kazakhstan. I've got a couple versions of the Soviet leaders starting back through Gorbachev (Yeltsin, Brezhnev, etc), and another that's a traditional Matryoshka. The Soviet leaders versions were very popular after the collapse of the USSR. I dunno....US Presidents aside, maybe Dallas Cowboys coaches? Period-correct cowboys going back to Texas Independence? Country music stars (good luck getting Dolly to fit)?
I have a set of unpainted Matryoshka dolls on the way, obviously! Who could resist? I haven't decided how to paint them yet.
If you paint them with a mix of Tempera and Bab-O (or some other powder cleanser; I suspect Comet would work), then you can periodically wash the paint off and do another pattern. This assumes the dolls start out varnished, or otherwise waterproofed, so the paint doesn't soak into the wood and permanently stain the dolls.
We had a big, street-facing picture window in our house when I was growing up, and every Christmas season, we'd paint a scene on the window with that mix. Cleaning off the scene at the end of the season also got the window its annual cleaning.
You've plainly got the talent to do the artwork, whether dolls, or chess pieces, or murals. Might be bad form for a politician in your neck of the woods to go running around tagging buildings, though.
Eric Hines
Your husband is lucky. My wife took over my pool table. I haven’t shot a game on it in years.
I won't be a politician for much longer. I didn't file for re-election, and my term ends at the end of 2022.
Murals are very appealing. I saw this ravishing glass-tile mosaic mural in the Houston airport decades ago. https://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/mosaic-airport-mural-houston-bayou-mosaic-artist-dixie-friend-gay-houston-texas/
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