Harvest Table, Sukkot Thanks

  I just finished doing a centerpiece panel on a table I had decorated years ago. My client's family had grown to grandchildren, and she needed to extend her table another couple of leaves.  As I remember, the initial finish was very complicated and took ages to do, and when I looked at the table leaves to match I was in despair.  Also, it just wasn't up to my standards today.

So, I suggested that I design a panel for the middle leaves, and I would separate the end edges with a small border to offset any discrepancy between the new and the old finish.

My clients are Jewish, and since the table will be often used as a family dining table, I suggested using artifacts from the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.  I looked up the items on the Internet, and decided to use the Lulav (palm leaves, myrtle and willow in a woven palm container and a citrus called the Etrog) for my design, with some grapes thrown in for jollity.  My client is an opera singer, so he suggested the mandolin and music motif in the center.

     

I did the drawing on tissue for the client's approval....drawing one fourth section and folding it twice and tracing it for symmetry. (Well, sort of)  Too much symmetry gets my back up...raises my Zen hackles, so to speak.

After approval of the design, I did  the prep and stippling of the boards...about six layers of different stippled glazes.

 

  Then I covered the panel area with a frisket that I picked up from a sign painting company.  It's called Transferite and it's like a big sheet of moveable masking tape.  I've had a roll of it forever, and to keep it from being too sticky, I dust a little talcum powder on the surface before I lay it down.  I cut out everything with an Exacto blade except the foliage, the grapes and the lulav and etrog, taped off edges with blue tape, and sloshed on hooker green Liquid Golden acrylic mixed with a little bone black.  Then, while it was still damp, I spritzed it a little with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water and picked up some of the mottled areas.  I waited and then added several layers of green and black, let it dry and then peeled off the remaining Transferite on the fruits and leaves and the lulav.  Then I started painting them with liquid Golden Acrylics....beginning with transparent glazes until I got the rich colors I wanted.

Then I painted all the sections I planned to gold leaf with a vermilion red.

After that, I started wiping on water based (diluted slightly with water) polyurethane over all the two panels, again and again....sanding with 320 wet dry every three or four layers.  After about 8 layers, I again frisketed off designs and borders I planned to gold leaf and cut out the areas of decorative borders, painted vermillion in those, painted with size and applied gold leaf.

 

I waited overnight, then removed the tape  and patched the gold leaf wherever it was too distressed (my gold leafing, out of necessity, always looks very antique), cleaned up wherever it was needed. vacuumed my glittering studio, put on many more coats of urethane, and there you are.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 11/21/09 All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.