A Rustic/ Woodsy Stained Art Piece

I recently had the pleasure of meeting a nice lady {who I will call MissW} who had seen my Equestrian dresser, which I had done for a friend of hers. She was requesting a custom piece to hang on her wall in her camp. MissW has a camp in the mountainous area of Northwestern PA known as Benezette. This particular area is known for its abundant Elk, and admirers come from all over to enjoy the Elk roaming free for photo ops and just to enjoy their majestic beauty.

MissW told me they have mules and ride the mules up to their camp. At first she wanted to have a piece with the mules and the Elk on one piece. But the more we discussed, I thought it might be better to have them on two separate pieces and she agreed.

I found this hinged barnwood door that I thought we could use one for the Elk and the other for the mules.

The problem was that paint. We wanted to keep the integrity of the old wood, so I started sanding and finally got it down to this

At this point, I knew I had to have it more uniform. I would have loved to put a paint wash over it, but I knew that wasn't the look she was going for. So, I decided to put a grey stain over it and see where that got us.

I thought I might be able to work with this, but in the back of my mind I feared the stained art would not have enough depth. I decided to go ahead and give it a try and started the staining.

MissW also wanted a "background" of sorts with mountains and trees - again, TOTALLY out of my norm! I admit, I went to the internet and looked at Bob Ross' videos on making pine trees! LOL - hey, it helped!

At this point, I was quite fearful it was not going to be enough depth and contrast. I was ready to scrap it and do a paint wash over the wood and start over. So, I showed MissW and also got some feedback from my furniture flipping groups. The feedback I got from all was to step away from it and it was going to look great...

So, I waited a few days for the stain to penetrate so that I could go back in with more detailing/ layers to see just how much contrast I could get.

And it worked!! I think I was able to keep the integrity of the old wood and get the dimension I wanted. And most importantly, MissW is thrilled!!!

Next up, we are going to take the matching board and put a picture of her mules. Oh, and we also decided to add her donkey in the next one! She will then attach the rusty hinges back together and hang on the wall! Should be marvelous (at least that's what I am envisioning!!)