Statue of Mary Restoration

Before photos of the statue:

In Progress:

After Photos:

This statue was pretty challenging.  As always the difficult part is the sanding/smoothing of the cracks.  In this case the cracks were in the statue itself not the paint.  So I smoothed them and then filled and sanded the rough spots.  Next up was quite a few priming coats.  Then the best part...the actual painting!  I used Nova color acrylic paints.  I painted the robes first because it's the largest area and then began the skin tones.  I'm always happiest when all the bright white is off the statue.  Then your eye can really see the colors.  I gave it a matte varnish finish but it still made it glossy.  This was a really fun commission! 

Restoring a Statue of Joseph and Jesus

While John and I were in Nebraska visiting his parents we went with them to their Bible study that Msgr Nemec was teaching.  Stella told him that I just restored a statue for my parish priest.  Msgr Nemec asked if I'd like to do another one and I said sure!  He disappeared up to the church attic and came down with this broken plaster statue of Joseph and Jesus.  The statue had a large part of it's neck missing with a few holes and cracks in other areas.  I said I'd love to restore it!  :)

When I got it home I washed the statue and decided to fix the broken parts of the statue with Spackle because plaster is very chalky like drywall.  

 I sanded it smooth after a night of drying and primed it with a few coats of gesso.

 Then I began blocking in colors with acrylic paint and adding highlights and shadows to the robes.

 Next were the skin tones and hair and finally the gold edging.  I'm really happy with how the statue turned out.  It was so nice to get more experience restoring statues.  I look forward to more statue work in the future. :)

Statue height: 27"

Restoring a Sacred Heart of Jesus Statue

This is a before and after photo of the work.  I'll include some process pictures too. :)

When I began I wasn't sure what the statue was made of so I lightly sanded off the old paint with a soft sanding block.  When I realized it was metal it was an easier process of using steel wool in the deep folds and a dremel with a wire brush on the rest of the surface.  

When I removed the old paint I wiped away the paint dust and brought it inside to begin priming the statue with white gesso paint.

Next I began blocking in colors.  This step is important because you can't see the true colors next to white paint.  

Then I worked on the face details next.

Then I started to detail the rest of the statue.  I painted the darks in the folds of the fabric and used a sponge with a lighter color to pullout the highlights.  Then I used a pearl on the natural white cloth and a antique gold on the red cloth.  The trim work was done with a bronze paint instead of gold leaf.  And then I put a few coats of exterior varnish on it to protect it from the elements.  

I had a lot of fun working on this project.  I hope I get the opportunity to do more work like this. :)