Publisher's Notes

A funny (yet wonderful) thing happened this week.  I finalized my line drawing and decided on a color palette to use for the coffee/tea design.  I even painted a “mini” design with a few elements in it to really work the colors out before attempting the much larger design.  I love the way the mini came out!  (See photo below)  But after completing the mini, I decided that I wanted to alter the colors for the larger design to a softer, lighter palette.  

I chose the base coat color and I mixed it with the sealer hoping to speed the process up, by allowing me to later eliminate one coat of paint. Once it was dry I sanded the surface once again to remove the raised tooth and was ready to base coat the board.  Now for the funny thing……I looked at the board and liked it the way it was!   Mixing the base color in with the sealer created an affect similar to pickling.  Only the color that I mixed with the sealer was Bahama Blue!   After sanding, it looked like a weathered board that had been used in the garden.  It turned into a light country blue-green.  I really liked it the way it was so I decided to leave it, and I transferred the pattern on.   (See background in photo below)

Once again I was exercising my artistic (or creative) license, and I chose to paint the design items in colors that work together, not the colors that they are in reality (because remember, I gathered the items from all around the house so they were in a variety of colors).   In my mind I had envisioned a turquoise/chocolate/white palette with a touch of pink for accents and I still intend to use this palette except I have changed the turquoise to more of an aqua.  I began by working on a tea cup that is in the design.  Many, many layers of colors have been built and I don’t feel that it is completed yet, but I’m going to move on to other elements.  I will return to the tea cup later to create more contrast and add some of the other colors used throughout the design to it.

I'm loving how things work themselves out……Tracy