The first thing I did was sand the top of the table down a little bit. This way it would make it easier to repaint the surface. When I was done sanding I took a damp cloth to wipe the table down and rid it of the extra dust. I didn't have one of those tacky cloths that you can use so I had to use a damp cloth. Which meant I needed to let it sit a while to let it completely dry. Once that was done I started to think about and plan how I was going to paint the table. I remembered when I painted Jaxen's table that I taped off the road ways and painted the green blocks first and then taped off the green blocks and painted the roads. It was such a pain to have to go back and cover the green blocks and make sure I got the corners just right. It took way too much time! It did work out in the end. Jaxen's table turned out really cute and he loved it. At least I thought it did!
It was my first time doing this as well and so I didn't really stop to plan it out much. I had an idea in my head and I just did it without thinking it through. Like I do with a lot of things. Haha! So when it came time to paint Jaden's table I took what I learned and told myself I should do differently the first time and planned it out for this one.
I did not want to spend so much time fixing the tape to the corners of the green blocks. I decided that this time around I was going to work in layers. First layer was the black for the roads. I got my acrylic paints and I painted the entire top surface of the table with black. I made sure to do at least 3-4 layers of the black paint so that there would be a nice even color all around. When the black paint was thoroughly dry I taped the roads off and began my next layers using green. I remember laughing a little and thinking "why didn't I think about this the first time?! It's so much easier!" Well, now I know for future reference what works better. I mainly sponged the green paint on. I used about 3 different shades of green and would apply each to different spots on the sponge. Then I would dab the sponge all over the area's I wanted to paint. I like using the different shades of color. It adds a bit of variety and texture. I think it brightens things up and makes it feel more artistic. After I was done with the green I went to work on the brown square. Jaden's table is a little bit bigger and so I was able to add a little more to it. I did the same with the brown as I did with the green using 3 different shades but I added some medium gel to the paint to give it more muddy texture. Then I took one of the boy's monster trucks and painted the wheels and ran the truck up and down through the brown paint. That also added to the muddy texture. Next I took the brown to make the shoreline of the pond and then added the blue for the water. I added some of the medium gel to the blue paint to make some waves. The last thing I did was to re-tape the roads using two strips of tape along each roadway leaving a small space between them. This is how I did the yellow road lines. It made it so much easier to do it this way instead of trying to do it freehand. But I learned I needed to pay attention to the intersections. I did have to go back a couple times and paint over a couple yellow lines to create the intersections. It looked better that way. And then after a coat of varnish it was done! It was so fun to put together. Most importantly Jaden loved it! I'm sure we will see lots of hours of play time here. Whether it's with cars or not it will be his special place to play.
No comments:
Post a Comment