Last winter, I worked on a different project beside my regular studies at school. Every year Tibro's craft academy collaborates with Art college in Gothenburg, where their design students create a detailed sketch of a chair that the students at our school later on builds into a physical chair.
From Tibro's craft academy this semester, it was Nils and Lovisa (from the special carpenters) who sawed all the pieces for the chair, and put it together at the end and I (from decor painting) and Kajsa (from gilding) made sure to paint it according to their wishes.
This is what the design students' sketch looked like:
The tiled chair RUT! Pretty cool, huh? It may not be a chair I would have in the living room myself. But imagen how cool it would be to have it in a bathhouse or similar. Or maybe at the bottom of a pool?
While the carpenters sawed all parts, I took the opportunity to test different types of "tile paint" on smaller test plates. They wanted the tiles to look crackled so I tested with different varnishes that made the color crack. As well as with different base colors. We also experimented with different type of imitation gold and silver leafs in the foundation. But then the tiles got a completely different expression that didn't suit the chair. Kajsa focused on finding the right black color and structure for the hook and the newspaper stand. The design students wanted them to look like cast iron with a slightly coarser structure.
Here are four different tests. I think I made about 15 tests before we made up our mind.
We decided that we wanted white lacquered top paint with a slightly broken white base paint in the cracks. Then it was just to let the party get started! The carpenters came in with all the pieces and then it was time to polish, paint, polish, paint, then apply the crackling varnish, polish again and then end with a few layers of lacquer paint.
About half of all the pieces of the chair that we were about to paint.
Malin in my class came in as a saving angel and helped to grind and paint the pieces (they were many!).
This is how the surface turned out in the end. I didn't have any good pictures from the "crackling stage".It was a bit difficult to capture it in picture as it takes a few hours for the varnish to be activated. When all the pieces were painted, the carpenters putted them all together. And voila! We had a chair!
Malin and I in action.
Final touches.
And there she is! Little RUT:
Portable newspaper stand and "café table".
Hanger with "cast iron look" (which Kajsa has painted).
What do you think? I think it looks kind of cool! Modern and old school at the same time. Far from a traditional cozy armchair (although it is actually very comfortable to sit in).
It was so fun to take part of this process. From seeing the first sketch and then to be involved in creating the final product. Especially when you get to collaborate with several different educations / schools in this way. And I have to say that it turned out very similar to the sketch, don't you think?
This chair (and a lot of other cool stuff) will be displayed at an exhibition in Mölndal in May. More info about that coming up soon.
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