Painted Table

Here’s the table, painted and waiting for dinner.  An interesting thing happened as I put the polycrylic coating on the table top.  I painted the design with acrylic paint and after letting it dry for 24 hours, I put an isolation coat of gloss medium over the entire top.  I wanted to make sure it was protected, so I did another coat of the medium in cross hatch strokes to make sure there were no distinctive brushstrokes in the finish.  Both of these coats were allowed to dry for a day.  Considering the humidity here is usually about 10%, it was a bit of overkill in time, but I wanted to be safe…not sorry.

I deliberately purchased a water based, acrylic finishing product, not a water based product containing solvents…as many seem to have.  As the first finish coat was applied, the cross hatch stokes of the second isolation coat started to appear milky white.  The medium was reacting with the polycrylic.  I panicked, but then thought I could always paint over all of it again.  BUT, as the top coat dried, the milky stokes disappeared…hurrah!  The next two coats went on beautifully and resulted in a clear, durable satin finish.

I painted the leaves and they are still sitting on the buffet near the window.  I’m not ready to put them in the closet yet…they look sort of nice where they are.

I still haven’t quite decided on how to paint the pedestal, so I think I’ll live with it a while and head back into the studio to start a new project…from the studio, or the dining room