DIY: hand-painted frame in indigo

The reason I and others just like me enjoy mindless strolling zigzagging through narrow lanes inside a thrift or an antique store is because of the adventurous feeling of finding something unique. Unique in the object itself and also unique in the sense that what I find unique could be totally different than what others see in it. You never really walk into a thrift-store looking for something in particular. You walk into a thrift shop to find out which treasure finds you. And so I pick out and buy any such treasure that jumps at me. Most of the times these are things that I do not need. Marie Kondo would shudder at the thought of this!

During one such trip, I had bought a few wooden frames. This was about six months ago and I have been slowly painting this one. Now it is finally done and ready to go on my Etsy Shop.

I liked this particular frame becaus the collage openings for the pictures had a nice proportional rhythm to each other and the frame was intact. The border was thick enough for me to do some artwork. Even in the natural wood - it was a very nice piece indeed.

I picked indigo as the base color to paint. I used regular acrylic paint and a regular paint brush. Before I painted it, I made sure to clean the frame thoroughly.

I looked up various designs and decided to go with a floral pattern that is common in porcelains. I also wanted to paint in a kantha-stitch pattern. Kantha-stitch is basically a "running" stitch pattern. So first I sketched it lightly with a pencil over the indigo.

I applied the filler color over my sketch. The green acrylic did not turn out to be as bright over the indigo as I had hoped it to be.

Since the green did not pop, I chose to use the white for painting the "kantha-stitch" or "running stitch" to go over the green floral pattern.

I thought the white was a good idea after-all, once it was complete.

I kept the dividing mullions plain indigo because its such a beautiful vivid color just on its own.

The frame did not come with any size guide in the back. So I decided to make them with printed scrapbook paper. Luckily, I found some beautiful prints that went well with the color scheme.