Thursday, August 18, 2011

Smoking at Old Sturbridge Village


After a business meeting, I helped some other members of the Historical Society of Early American Decoration (www.hsead.org) with a decorating project at our new research center at Old Sturbridge Village (www.osv.org).

Smoke decoration is done by using a sooty candle or lamp (we get the candle to produce more soot by holding a large nail in the flame), letting the still wet paint or varnish trap the soot on the service. The swirls of soot leave a "marbled" appearance. One drawback, as you can see from the picture, is that you need to have the item above the smoking candle, and for these cabinet doors, that made it a three-person job.

Will post more when the doors are re-installed. For more about the group decorating the building, go to: http://hsead.org/OSVblog/WWHHT.html



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