Beauty for ashes... or there abouts

I saw a woman painting her toolbox and I strolled over to her to say that I wanted to paint some flowers on the black toolbox that I had made from some scrap wood I had found at a dump. She said that she already had some acrylic paint and was just waiting for the cream paint she was applying to dry and then she would be doing some flowers as well. Do you ever get that feeling that someone steals your idea and you are left in second place because you are slow off the mark.

Anyway I returned a few days later and indeed she had painted some flowers on her toolbox. I think she did a good job of it. Better than I could ever do since the representation is of actual flowers. I did not want to appear to be a copycat so I had to come up with something diferent. Something simple with only a few colours and I thought that some art deco motif in the style of Alfons Mucha would be easy to do.




















So I decided on a poppy mitif for the front and some tulips for the top. I like the sparceness of the lines, and the simplicity of the drawing. They looked good on paper but when it comes to transferring them onto a rough black wooden surface then that is a different matter. Once the paint brush is dipped into the paint and the paint is applied to the wood then there is no going back.

I know from experiance that you get a line or a shade of colour wrong and you see the mistake instantly, and if it were a water colour on a bit of paper you could scrumpple up the paper and start again, but with a toolbox it is a bit heavy to throw in the ditch if you paint something you don't like and it is left there as a legacy to you ineptitude. Or if you are writing, and make a spelling mistake, or construct a sentence that you don't like then there is always the possibility to correct it, so that the words come out to your satisfaction.

Having the will to correct things rather than abandon them is a very powerful quality.




















But perhaps the best thing to do is to do some research and prepare. Take things easy and advance slowly. I bought some chalk to do a rough outline of the motif I want and have gotten as far as doing an outline on the top of the toolbox. I bought myself some chineese tubes of acrylic paint and some rubbish paintbrushes.

















My way of thinking is that if you cobble together a tool box from some scrap wood from a dump then it is a bit ridiculous to spend lots of money on paints and brushes. My attitude is OK I have some scrap wood, let's build the best box we can from it. That is the best feeling to create something useful from something that has been discarded as worthless. The decorations are just a little bit of frivolity.

Painting a poppy on an old black box is like pinning a medal on the chest of a soldier. It is a way of saying. Yep!!! you'll do for me.