Living Art: Creating a Whimsical Doorbell

Creating a Whimsical Doorbell

Inspiration

The doorbell cover was pretty dirty so I took it down and cleaned it. While doing so I payed attention to the details of the frame and decided it reminded me of royalty. That's when it occurred to me that I should paint panels of a whimsical king and queen to replace the ugly-outdated inserts. I determined that I could just paint the backs of these inserts since they were flat.

Original doorbell after cleaning

Although I had a picture forming in my mind, I decided to do a little internet research to study playing cards for inspiration. I found these playing cards by Karl Korab.

Inspirational Playing cards by artist Karl Korab

Supplies

After removing the panels from the frame, I primed them using BIN primer. The kind with shellac - it's messy and needs to be cleaned using ammonia but it works well on glossy surfaces without sanding.

I sketched the design on to the dried panels with a pencil and painted with Liquitex Acrylic Paints and added metallic touches with Powdered Pigments by Jacquard. Just prior to painting a section, I used the gum eraser to remove all but the faintest pencil lines so they would not bleed up through the paint.

Sorry, I did not take pictures of the work in process only because I was so absorbed in it that I forgot. Next time I will do better!