This is my first attempt at a tutorial. Back on this post I announced my plans to do an art chair for a fundraising event for our local domestic violence shelter, Next Step Ministries. The chairs are to be auctioned off (hopefully someone will want mine) on September 26th, 2015.
This is the chair I am working on. As I explained in the earlier post, I had already attempted to paint this chair. I followed (sort of) directions I found on a few websites where they had successfully painted upholstery on old seen-better-days chairs. After this attempt I had my doubts about just how successful those chairs turned out. Mine was stiff and rough after drying. I had used bottle after bottle of fabric medium mixed with watered down latex paint, applied it in layers, letting the paint dry between layers as instructed.
You can see here what the upholstery originally looked like. 
This chair was a hand-me-down chair circa 1970’s is my guess. I owned absolutely nothing that coordinated with it in all the 25 years I have hauled it from house to house. It’s a solid chair except for this little problem. 
I decided to leave it. It gives it some human history. I will share the story in the second part of this tutorial.
So, with nothing to lose except maybe the chair, I am attempting to turn this mess into something cool, or beautiful, funky, or a complete new mess. I do not have a solid plan at the moment. This is going to be spontaneous art. My only guide is that I have to like it in case it comes back to live with me again!
My tools – one can of off-white flat latex commercial grade paint I found for $9 on the reject shelf, two sample jars of a golden yellow and soft green paint for $3.50 each, one tub of chalk paint clear wax for a whopping $16 (this is supposed to be the savior of the project and for that price it better be) and various colors of acrylic paints as needed.
Step 1 – give the whole chair one or two (I hope just one) coating of the off white paint to get a solid background.
Check back for Part 2 and see how this all turns out.
Pencils, Paint & Paper 