Ombre Seats

These chairs came from Habitat about twenty years ago when I was living in a flat in South London. They have long been relegated to the garage forming part of that group of possessions which many of us own, they are no longer useful to us, but we are not ready to part with them. I recently worked on a project for Reloved Magazine and needed a smooth surface to demonstrate an ombre stencil technique on and so the chairs became useful again.

There are many ways to achieve an ombre effect with paint, but the technique I have used here creates a really subtle gradation of colour. The chairs were painted a lovely denim blue colour on the top surface only. The edges of the wood were wiped with a damp cloth to create a really clean line.

Once the paint was dry, I stencilled the pattern using the Souk Stencil which had been coated with Spray Mount on the back with a narrow border at the bottom. Then using another dry stencil brush I dipped the tip of the bristles into the blue paint,  removing as much as possible so that the brush was almost dry. Starting at the bottom of the stencilled pattern and using a small circular motion I applied the blue paint over the white pattern gradually fading it out about half way up. This was repeated on the bottom border but starting at the top and working downwards.

Once I was happy with the level of shading I applied a coat of Polyvine Varnish and repeated the same process with a different stencil for each of the four chairs.

For this project I used the Souk, Fes, Agra and Cordoba Stencils with Whitstable Stencil Paint which you can find here