Jupiter Ball Redoux - Part 1

The original painting.

Long time readers may remember that in 2015 I made a hypertufa gazing ball and painted it to look like Jupiter.  The ball sat outside for a long time.  By 2017, sun and weather took its toll on the ball and it became faded and the paint was flaking off in the polar region.  I decided the ball needed a makeover.  I started the project this spring, but had so many trips and projects going on that the project languished all year.

Paint faded and flaked off over the years.

The ball had originally been painted with acrylic paints.  I knew that at some point they would fade, but at that time I thought when the time came I would cover it with stained glass and make it into a mosaic gazing ball.  In the end, I decided that I was really quite fond of my Jupiter ball and would like to repaint it.  However, I did not want to end up painting the ball every few years so I decided to use enamel paints rather than acrylics.  This is where the trouble started.  I was unsure how well the enamel paints would work over top of the acrylic paint and sealer and whether the acrylic paint would continue to flake off, taking new paint with it.

Paint removed with a power tool.

I felt I had to get the old paint off the ball before I could put new paint on the ball.  Although the paint was flaking off in some places, the rest of it was thoroughly adhered to the ball.  I made a trip out to my local discount hardware place for a wire brush.  As is many times the case with this discount hardware store, the wire brush was really not the best quality.  After a couple of hours with this thing I started using a much sturdier wire brush from my husbands tool kit.  After a few more hours of diligent brushing the paint was still barely scratched off in a few places. 

The new enamel base coat.

I decided I needed to go to Plan B: a power tool.  I began using a grinding angle with a masonry attachment.  Compared to the wire brush, this tool took off the paint quickly but it was still a couple of hours of work.  The tool was fairly heavy and before I was able to figure out the best way to hold it against the curved surface of a sphere I made a few gouges in the ball.  To smooth out the worst of the dings, I kept grinding away at the ball.  It is a little bit smaller than when I started; and probably not quite as round.  Furthermore, when the ball was cast, the surface was relatively smooth.  The grinder left all sorts of score marks and I was very disappointed with the look at the time.  Later, I began to think of these marks as a feature.  I am sure that I could have eventually found a way to smooth the surface, but it would have taken a lot of time.  At that point, I set the project aside, partly through frustration and partly because I was so busy that I was not getting into the studio for weeks at a time. 

I did make one attempt at restarting this project near mid-summer.  I made it out to the craft store and purchased the enamel paints.  That was another discouragement point.   I needed to use air dry enamel paints rather than bake in the oven paints because the ball was too large to fit into the toaster oven that I have dedicated for craft projects.  The craft store had a very poor selection of enamel paints. Mainly what they carried in air dry enamels were paints for painting on glass.  Most of the colors appeared to be either transparent or muddy.  I decided to do what I could with what colors I could mix together.  I started painting the base color on the ball. Each color had to sit for at least an hour before another coat could be added.

At this point, the ball is not finished.  I have painted on the base coat and done a little work on Jupiter's red spot.  It has taken a while to get this far but the results have been encouraging.  The striations caused by the angle grinder have become an asset.  It gives the ball the rough look of Jupiter's roiling atmosphere.  The transparency of the paints will cause me to use more layers of paint than before, but that may add to the look of the planet's storm clouds.  I still have a long way to go on the painting of this project, but I think that with more layers of paint that the sphere will be restored to something of its previous condition.  At least it will be restored enough to put it back outside. 

Check back next Sunday to see the progress on the sphere.