H&A favourite Annie Sloan explains how an exhibition of work by early 20th-century painter and etcher Paul Klee inspired her to paint a number of pieces, such as this chest of drawers with graduated colour.
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‘I’d forgotten how much Klee has influenced me until a I visited to the Making Visible exhibition at Tate Modern in 2014′ says Annie. ‘Seeing the show spurred to me to produce new pieces. To my mind Klee was a great colourist and colour has always made a huge impact on me.’
‘On seeing Greeting and Separation, I just thought, “Wouldn’t these translate into a lovely chest of drawers?” These tiny watercolour studies (both painted in 1922 for his students) explore how complementary colours work together.’
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How to upcycle a chest of drawers:
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- Find a chest with close fitting drawers to upcycle – junk shops and auction houses are good places to look.
- Paint the frame with a dark shade of chalk paint. We chose Graphite Chalk Paint.
- Select two complementary colours for the top and bottom drawers. We opted for Barcelona Orange and Greek Blue.
- Starting with the bottom drawer, make gradual colour gradations using the two colours. For the bottom drawer we used Greek Blue on its own, for the next drawer up we mixed in a small amount of Barcelona Orange and so on, finishing with Barcelona Orange on its own for the top drawer.