Painted Hypertufa Sphere Garden Art

Painted Hypertufa Sphere.

I am working on a project I began earlier this year.  I had made my first attempts at casting some Hypertufa Spheres.  (See my blog posts from May 5 2014 through May 14, 2014 to read about casting the Hypertufa Spheres and the recipe used for it.  The blog address is folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com)  They were a whitish gray color.  They can be left in the garden as is, and will develop a patina over time.  However, why go for bland when you can add a pop of color?  I decided top paint the smaller of the two spheres I made just to see how well it stood up to weather and time in the garden using acrylic paints. An earlier project had shown that it was feasible.

Cast Hypertufa spheres.

I had made a project earlier in the year in which I had formed a concrete ball over a papier mache' base.  The ball was painted with Gesso, acrylic craft paints, and an outdoor acrylic sealer  after the concrete cured and I left it outside all summer.  It seemed none the worse for wear after being out in the sun and weather for most of the year.  The colors were as vibrant as the day they were set outside.  Unfortunately, casting the concrete was not as successful as I would have liked.  The method left the ball a little lumpy.  The idea worked, but I felt I could do better on the shape.  More experiments will be made sooner or later.

Painted concrete over papier mache' base.

Here at the end of the year I rarely get into a serious project.  With all the holiday activities and visits to
family and friends it is hard to find time to do a project that requires a significant commitment of time.  I still feel the need to be creative though, so I work on some project that I can work on here and there as time permits.  It seemed like a good time to do a fun painting project.  I decided to paint one of the Hypertufa spheres.  It is just something to play around with until after the first of the year.

Twine sphere.

I had been looking at NASA space pictures of the planet Jupiter.  They had shown some false color image photos so you could see the turbulence in the dust and gas filled Jovian atmosphere.  The colors intrigued me enough to try to paint the ball in similar colors.  I have not completed the ball yet, but the base layers are on and some of the colors are in place.  It is not meant to be an exact replica of the photos, but just a general idea of what the photos looked like.  I guess you could look at it and say that it is Jupiter.  The main thing is that I liked the umbers, siennas, and blue that made up the colors in the photo.  It was nice to put on dibs and dabs of paint as I saw fit without having to think about whether it was realistic looking.  It was just a fun paint day.  I still have more I want to add though I expect to finish the painting and seal it today.  Once the sealer has had time to cure I'll set it outside and see what happens to it during the winter.  I'll post another photo once I complete painting the sphere.

I forgot to show a picture of my twine sphere last blog post when I was blogging about projects completed this year.  I'm posting it here just for the record.

Just a reminder.  Starting next week my blog will have posts on Sundays and Thursdays.  A scheduling conflict is going to prevent me from posting on Wednesdays.