I’m taking a slight break from Canvas Paintings & Jewelry to start work on a new entry into my Color of Music series.
I’ve had it in the back of my head that I’d love to do a gallery exhibit of a bunch of my painted instruments but so far every one I’ve done has sold not that I’m complaining ;), but it does makes it a tad difficult to put on an exhibit without any pieces in my possession lol.
So today I dug through my stash of goodies that I have squirreled away in my studio and picked out another guitar to start working on tonight. I had a few electrics, another child’s acoustic and this big acoustic that I thought would be a nice change since my last piece was an electric and the one before a child acoustic.
As you can tell, my dog likes to sleep in my studio 🙂 and couldn’t be bothered to move heh.
I have a general idea of what I want to do with this piece but I won’t tell at the moment until I start and sort things out 🙂 but stay tuned and I’ll post as I work on it over the next few days.
Amanda Milke 
Amanda – I am a musician and have an older guitar that I want t splatter paint on and hang it on the wall. I cant afford to buy one your fantastic art pieces (musician should say it all) and wanted to get some help in prepping the guitar and also what kind of paint to get to paint on it.
1. Should i sand the guitar and if so what grit to use?
2. What kind of paint?
3. How long does it take to dry in between coats?
4. How do i choose a color palette?
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Hi Lee being a “starving artist” lol I can relate. What I usually do in terms of process is first strip the guitar. I usually disassemble as much of it as possible. For the acoustic one that started the series I actually ended up paper maché-ing it because the neck had broken so I wanted to give it some solid support.
After I have it stripped I usually rough it up with some coarse sand paper and give it a white or black base coat with either gesso or acrylic spray paint.
I usually use artist quality acrylic paint from either the Golden or Liquitex brands along with a few others I’ve accumulated. If you’re going for the pair that splattered look I would recommend the fluid or high flow version of those brands because the tube paint will require dilution where as the fluids you can use directly from the bottle. I’ve done both so it depends on your preference. To get the nice POP between colors I would recommend drying between colors to build your layers.
In terms of palette like I tell all my students who are starting out choose 3 colours a 2 that are similar 1 for contrast and then add in some black and white for pop. So for example 2 blues and an orange for contrast then either black or white for interest. Once you start layering the colours will branch out into different shades etc.
Once finished reassemble, varnish and add some wire for hanging.
Hope that helps 🙂
I’d love to see the finished piece.
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