Da Vinci’s new technique was called secco or “dry”, and though it looked good, and was more suited to his slower pace, it wasn’t made to last. The problem was that the paint didn’t bond to the wall in the same way that it would have if it had been painted onto wet plaster. As a result, the Last Supper began to deteriorate almost immediately. Throughout the years, the painting has also suffered damage from a variety of, uh, acts of God? For instance, the bottom of the painting was destroyed when a door was added in the middle of the wall and the wall itself narrowly avoided destruction after a WWII bomb destroyed nearly all of Santa Maria delle Grazie, including the cafeteria surrounding the wall.
How To Paint Wardrobes
There was a time when almost all of your furniture was built to last generations, and was expected to be repainted or refinished many times over the course of its service life. Painting fitted wardrobes used to be key when redecorating. That’s no longer always the case, and quite a few pieces of modern furniture go their entire existence without a single change of colour.
Now, if you have a cheap and cheerful flat pack wardrobe, it might well not last long enough to be worth painting. Refinishing particleboard is as difficult as it is pointless. But if you do have a painted wardrobe that is showing its years or a varnished pine wardrobe that is looking a bit bedraggled, painting it could give it decades of new life.
So, let’s talk about the best way to paint wardrobes.
@the_disco_house using ‘2AM’ in eggshell for a chic IKEA wardrobe transformation, who would have thought it?
What You Need To Paint Your Wardrobes
Before you can really get started, you should make sure you have all the tools and supplies you need. Don’t worry, the list is quite short:
- A suitable primer and paint for wardrobe doors
- Sandpaper, and possibly a sanding block
- PPE, including safety goggles and a dust mask
- A vacuum with a good filter
- Sugar soap and a damp cloth
- A place to lay out the doors horizontally
- A set of screwdrivers (for removing the doors)
Now that you’ve gathered your materials, set aside a solid day to accomplish your project to a professional level. You may be disappointed in the results if you rush yourself.
Prepare Your Workspace
Now, painting bedroom wardrobes or any large piece of furniture doesn’t have to be particularly messy, but painting is still painting. You’ll want to prepare the area you’ll be working in to minimise mess and potential problems.
Don’t worry, though. This part won’t take you all day.
If you are working on a discrete piece of furniture, lift it up one side at a time and slide a tarp under it. There will be drips, and you don’t want to put your carpet or floor at risk. If you are working on a fitted wardrobe, that won’t be possible. Just tuck the tarp or a drop cloth in as close as you can to the bottom, and consider masking your floor.
@west_london_carpentry showing us how it’s done using ‘Record Store’ on the outside of this wardrobe.
Remove the drawers, doors, shelves, rail and any other removable piece or attachment in the wardrobe. Trying to work around them will be a nightmare. While you’re at it, take off all the hardware – that is, the handles, hinges and other metal bits.
You might as well steal a march on one of the latter steps by placing the drawers on the edge of a worktable now, with the front of the drawer overhanging the edge of the table by at least an inch. That will make them much easier to paint later.
Though born a “nobody”, da Vinci’s talent was clear from the start
Leonardo da Vinci was an illegitimate son. His father, a respected lawyer, and his mother, a peasant of the same town, were never married. For reasons that are still somewhat murky, the young boy eventually came to live with his dad. One way or another Leonardo never received the classical education in Greek, Latin and higher mathematics that would have been common to high-born boys of his day.
Despite these handicaps, he showed artistic talent early on, and as a young teenager, he was sent to Florence to work as an apprentice for the Florentine painter Andrea del Verrocchio, where he quickly surpassed his master’s talent.
It’s said that Verrocchio completed his 1475 masterpiece, the Baptism of Christ, with the help of da Vinci, who painted the background and probably the young angel holding Jesus’ robe. After seeing da Vinci’s talent, popular legend has it that Verrocchio vowed to never paint again, though this is one rumor that’s never been proven.
Though officially attributed to Verrocchio, the Baptism of Christ shows da Vinci’s official launch into the art world. Go see it in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery.
Da Vinci was notorious for never finishing his work.
His wide range of interests often distracted him and his perfectionism discouraged him from declaring a painting officially finished. Often accused of being a helpless procrastinator, the problem wasn’t that da Vinci wouldn’t start works, it was that he was constantly starting works and neglecting to finish the ones he had already begun.
The Uffizi houses some of these unfinished masterpieces, including two of the artist’s first paintings, done in collaboration with Verocchio: the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi. The first of which was painted in 1472 and housed in the Uffizi since 1867, the latter was left incomplete in 1481 and has been in the Uffizi since 1670.
But these aren’t the only works the artist never officially finished. The list includes St. Jerome in the Wilderness in the Vatican City, the Virgin and Child with Saint Anne held in the Louvre in Paris, and even the great Mona Lisa are examples of the da Vinci masterpieces that the artist never declared completed.
It appears that Leonardo was rarely happy with his work and had trouble stopping himself from making minute adjustments to his paintings long after they were probably “complete”.
He was also an extremely slow worker
Da Vinci spent three years working on the Adoration of the Magi and yet it still remains unfinished. Public domain photo via Wikicommons
Da Vinci might have gotten away with not finishing a few works if he had maintained a faster pace. In his lifetime Van Gogh painted more than 2,000 works. Da Vinci, in comparison, spent more than three years painting the Last Supper and more than five years working on the Mona Lisa. The Adoration of the Magi took another three years, and, yes, it too, remains unfinished!
