Starburst

Saturday, August 29, 2009 | |

This one is mine:
Inspired by:


And the directions

TOOLS:

  • 1 convex mirror (sold at automotive stores as a blind-spot mirror) the only convex mirror i could find had a black plastic shell that was hard to remove. I broke 2 convex mirrors before I gave up and found a 4" flat mirror
  • 1 cardboard disc the same size as the convex mirror (about 1/2" thick). A wooden disc could work as well. i used a wooden disk
  • 12" dowel rods
  • 12" skewers
  • Permanent marker
  • Mounting hardware
  • Ruler
  • Silver-leaf water-based gold-leaf i used silver spray paint
  • Sizing brushes
  • Hot glue
  • Round mosaic mirrors in 3 sizes (100 mirrors in total)


STEPS:

  1. First, the plastic around the convex mirror had to be removed. It was held in place with glue but was able to be removed with steam.
  2. Next, I found the center of the cardboard disc and used a permanent marker to divide the disc into 16 equal segments with a ruler (like a pizza).
  3. Then I hot-glued the dowel rods directly on the lines so the dowels would be evenly spaced and radiate out from the disc. I then added a wooden skewer in between the dowels for variety.
  4. After everything was glued in place, I brushed on a water-based gold-leaf sizing and let it sit until tacky (about 30 minutes).
  5. After it was tacky, I took 1 sheet of silver leaf at a time and began to cover the dowels, skewers and center with it. I used a brush to adhere the silver leaf to the sizing and brushed away any excess.
  6. After everything was silver leafed, I used hot glue to adhere the convex mirror on top of the smooth side of the center disc. (The dowels were glued to the back).
  7. I then randomly hot glued the small round mirrors to the skewers and dowels (approx. 3 mirrors per "arm").
  8. Mounting hardware was then hot glued to the finished mirror.


RESOURCES: An automotive parts store was my best source for this project. I found a convex mirror for $2.99!

1 comments:

Learning to Fly said...

Jess- You did a great job on this piece!! Congrats on a masterpiece :) Love the pictures of Pike's Peak too!

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