Scavenger Chic

Painting a Pumpkin Slate

• By Joan
• September 16, 2018
• 4 Comments

When son #2 was in need of a door to put on his home office, I volunteered to be on the look out.  I always like a good excuse to visit the local salvage yard.

Son #2 is the same son who gave me my first grandson in March.  Before baby he had no problem working from home, but now he was finding it harder and harder to be in phone meetings with a baby crying or cooing in the background. He needed a decent, heavy door.

To the salvage yard.  I dragged hubby along, which was a good thing because those old doors are heavy.  With measurements and a tape measure in hand we found several likely candidates, emailed the happy homeowners, they picked their favorite and we were able to squeeze the door into the car.  

I would show you  all the steps to install an old door… cutting it down, chiseling out new holes for hinges, planing and hanging but it was more a comedy of errors and we all ended up having a new respect for door hangers.  It is hanging in it’s new home, and it looks pretty darn good, but I must say, the process was not pretty.

The reason I bring up my door search was because while we were at the salvage yard we also purchased a couple slates.  They had hundreds and hundreds of salvaged slates and I bought 2.  A couple of months ago, I brought you a bluebird slate and I was ready to paint again, this time I’m tackling a pumpkin.

Since the slate had been outdoors for years, it needed a good cleaning.  Into the sink it went where I attacked it with a brillo pad which did manage to get most of the gunk off.

This is a better picture of the colors I’m using for my pumpkin.  The white is chalk paint, while the others are inexpensive acrylics.  White, orange, red, mustard, brown and black.

With chalk, draw your pumpkin shape directly onto the slate.

The slate is clean, the difference in colors is the natural weathering of the slate.

This is a test of the orange paint directly on slate.  Acrylics tend not to cover very well.

Since the acrylics don’t paint over slate well, I primed the slate with the white chalk paint.

Add your paints to your palette, or dishware, and  begin to paint.

I like to start with the darkest part of the pumpkin first and while it’s still wet blend the other colors in.

Keep adding more paint and more layers until  your pumpkin looks like a pumpkin.  OK, it was a lot of layers and even a little finger painting to get those layers to blend in.

The white highlights were added after the other layers had dried.

If you’re going to use your sign outdoors spray with several layers of polyurethane.

I left my pumpkin plain, but you could always add a nice seasonal greeting, Welcome, Happy Halloween, Give Thanks, Happy Fall…the choice is yours.

Stay inspired.

Shared at Metamorphosis Monday, Talk of the Town,

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