"Spike" a papier mache' ugly fish

"Spike" started out as an old project that I felt had zero personality. It sat on my shelf for about 2 years. Then one day I decided to play with cold porcelain. I ended up making some spikes and thought they might look good on it. 

It definitely got me back interested. Although the cold porcelain was a total fail, I fixed the problem and ended up with a pretty fun project in the end. 

For the materials and process that I use, the cold porcelain failed with the joint compound because of the wetness, so I had to take out all of the spikes an replace them with something else. 

I ended up cooking up some polymer spikes and it worked out better than I had hoped.

Once cooked, I glued them in and went over them with the joint compound. 

Let's talk about the paint process, because I love the way this material finishes. 

You can choose to sand your pieces to be perfect or you can leave them imperfect, which is the way I love them. Leaving the texture imperfect allows the colors to build up and adds more depth to the piece. 

I start with a base coat of gesso. And I usually do this outside as gesso is a smelly chemical that needs good airflow for your work area. I add a little bit of color to the gesso so it's easier for me to see where it ended up, as the joint compound is also white and you don't want to miss any spots. 

Once gesso is on, I start choosing my colors. I do a lot of layers of color to try to get the most out of the texture. The first color I choose is the color I am going to ultimately paint on the top layer too. I chose cadmium red medium. Then I added cadmium red light using a dry brush to grab some of the texture. I then used paynes grey to fill in the darker ares, like around the spikes and eyes. I then washed the whole thing in deep violet. 

Now I'm ready for final painting. I painted it again with the cadmium red medium and added some textural dots in cadmium red light and by mixing the cadium red medium with payne's grey for a darker shade of dot. 

The spikes were painted payne's grey to white after everything else because they are simply in the way of everything and need to be done last. 

The green used for the eyes and base  is phthalo green, which is one of my favorites. 

I took a pic of my pallet (right) so you can see the colors I used. And I cannot brag enough about the liquitex Gloss Super Gel. (also pic right) It put a nice thick clear coat on it and made ti look so shiney.