On a recent trip to Home Goods I found the cutest rabbit statue for my garden. One problem. I didn’t really care for the shiny silver finish. I was about to put it back on the shelf when I did a mental head slap. I remembered that you can always paint it! This has become my mantra over the years. It seems that I always find something that I LOVE but it is the wrong color! Thank goodness I don’t mind painting.
One reason that I loved the little rabbits is because they reminded me of these cute little frogs from Grandinroad.
However, the frogs were a bit more than I wanted to pay for garden art.
I love the worn verdigris finish on these sweet little frogs!
My goal was to paint my rabbits similarly to these frogs.
Step 1:
Give the statue a coat of copper paint.
I always consider where I will be using whatever I’m painting.
Since this will be outside, I am using a multi-surface metallic paint.
Since it is metallic you may need more than one coat.
I painted my rabbits with 3 thin coats of copper paint.
Step 2:
Once the copper paint is dry, it’s time to dry brush your statue with turquoise paint.
Load up your brush really well, then wipe most of the paint off on a paper towel.
Then lightly brush on your turquoise paint.
You don’t want to cover every little thing, rather hit the highlights.
You want the copper to show through.
Step 3:
Dry brush some white paint onto the statue.
I could have left well enough alone, but the finish was a little too bright for me.
Dry brushing on a little white paint gave the finish more depth.
Step 4:
Antique the statue.
Again, the statue at this point looked good, but it just needed a little more depth and warmth.
So I added some antiquing gel.
I painted it on, then with a damp rag, immediately wiped most of it off.
Don’t add too much.
Just enough to make it look a little dirty.
Once it is dry, add a protective flat topcoat to protect your finish.
My sweet little rabbits turned out so well!
I love them so much more now that they aren’t super silver and shiny.
And the change didn’t cost me a lot of money.
Just a little time and leftover paint.
My kind of makeover!
Until next time…
