Paper Mâché Pumpkin Part 3- Painting

mâché

Painting is complete.

New readers who may wish to see more on the construction of the pumpkin can scroll back through the last few posts, or visit the blog at folkartbycaroljones.blogspot.com

The yellow exterior coat.  Interior is Tangelo.

I have completed the painting on the paper mâché pumpkin.  The painting was a much bigger undertaking than I had expected.  Part of the time it took to paint the pumpkin was because I decided at the last minute to try an experiment.  Just as I was finishing the form of the pumpkin, I had an idea pop into my head about waterproofing it.  I was not sure it was going to work.  I was even more unsure whether I wanted to experiment on a pumpkin that I had spent so much time building from scratch.  However, curiosity got the better of me and I just had to try. 

Red coat painted over brown coat.

This was constructed from newsprint and a basic flour and water paste. This pumpkin was intended for limited outside use, or use in a sheltered area, and is painted with acrylic paints.  Acrylic paints will fade in prolonged exposure to sunlight.  I would have used exterior grade paints, but Covid-19 is a thing at the moment, and I was not heading to my local hardware store for exterior paint during a pandemic.  I had planned on sealing it with spar varnish, an oil based sealer.  When I started the project, there was some spar varnish in the workroom.  However, my husband was doing some Spring cleaning, and tossed it out.  So, at the moment, the pumpkin has been painted, but not sealed.

Sealed with grout sealer.

The idea that popped into my head was to use grout sealer on the paper mâché pumpkin once the last layer was dry.  I painted it with two coats of the grout sealer.  The grout sealer was slightly milky when it came out of the bottle.  When it dried, I could tell that the pumpkin looked a little darker once the grout sealer was painted on, but you could still easily read the newspaper text.  The interesting thing was that the grout sealer turned the paper mache really hard.  Hard like rock.  Sometimes when the end of a piece of paper does not glue down well I either use some white glue to stick it down, or rip it off if it is not in a critical spot.  However, once the grout sealer was on and dry, a single piece of paper felt like it was made out dried clay.  The piece would not tear off. 

After giving the sealer twenty-four hours to dry between coats, I was ready to paint.  I painted the main body of the pumpkin first.  First, I painted on two coats of medium-body Gesso as a primer.    The interior was pained with a craft paint called Tangelo.  It is a red-orange.  I used a brown acrylic paint for the exterior base coat.  The color was called Nutmeg.  It was browner than Raw Sienna but not as dark as Burnt Umber.  I let that dry for twenty-four hours than painted Cadmium Red Light Hue over the brown.  That red is very transparent.  Twenty-four hours later, I added  a yellow color called Straw.  It was a slightly greenish-yellow.  It also had a lot of white in it to opaque it, so I had to use a very thing coat of that color.  The brown and red coats were painted on with a half-inch bristle brush.  The final two coats were Cadmium Orange Hue.  The yellow and orange coats were painted on using a fan brush. 

The eyes were painted separately from the main portion of the pumpkin.  I had initially tried a different paint scheme for the eyes, but did not like it.  I repainted with two coats of the Gesso Primer and then started painting in the order above.  The difference is that I stopped painting after the Straw color.  The yellow seemed to give the pumpkin a baleful stare.  The red paint showing through did give the appearance of bloodshot eyes.

For the main section of the pumpkin's removable top, the primer and colors are the same as above.  The main difference is in the coloring of the stem.  I had a little trouble getting the stem colors to look like a stem.  I painted it over a couple of times.  I wanted to have a little bit of green at the base of the stem.  My first stem attempt was too green.  My second attempt was still to green.  I painted over most of the green with the Nutmeg, some Straw, a little Raw Sienna, and some more Nutmeg.  I finally found something I could live with, so I stopped there.  I just don't have as much painting ability as I would like.  I muddle through somehow.

The teeth are made from purchased paper clay rather than strip paper mâché.  The stem is paper clay also.  After two coats of the grout sealer and two coats of Gesso, they were painted with a base coat mixture of Titanium White, Raw Sienna, and some Pearlizing Medium.  That mixture helped cover the bright white of the paper clay.  A wash of Raw Sienna was applied after the first coat was dry.  Then the small pits and crevices were filled in with a darker wash of Raw Sienna.  After that was dry, the pits were further enhanced with small dabs of Raw Sienna.

Other than that, there were a few highlights painted on, above and beneath the eyebrows and nose to give them some prominence.  I also painted a few areas depressed areas around the mouth to make them more obvious.  That is about it.

At this point, I am calling the painting done.  I will have to wait until I get some exterior sealer to complete the project.  Soon I hope.  The main problem with exterior sealers is that they tend to have a high odor and need to be used on a well ventilated area.  I will have to use them outside and be able to store the project in a shed for a while.  I will figure something out.

My next project is going to be a different experiment on waterproofing the paper mâché.  There are two or three recipes on the internet, and they work.  The problem I have with them is that they make a big mess.  You need a large bucket, fairly large amounts of supplies, a drill with a paddle for mixing, etc.  My husband has the drill and maybe the paddle, but I would need a dedicated bucket. 

I really don't have to place for making such a mess.  The large amounts made by these recipes are way more than I would be able to work with in the amount of time I have available.  A previous attempt at storing the homemade paper clay was not a success.  It was in a bag in the refrigerator, and it molded very quickly.  I wanted to find something easier to make that can be done in small batches.  I have an idea.  I plan to try it out.   Check back in about a week for more on the new project.