Oriental awesome.

I was given another cupboard to paint with a free rein on design. My very first thought was 'oriental', mainly because the handles and hinges reminded me of little Chinese dragons. This is what the cupboard looked like after I'd sanded it down.

I had to give the handles and hinges a good cleaning as they were covered in limescale. I soaked them in coke for a day and then scrubbed them clean and they came out looking like new.

I wanted to do a bold statement piece on this cupboard so I decided to do a black and gold Chinese dragon. It was a fairly simple design but I made sure to include all the elements that my research showed Chinese dragon designs usually feature: a long body, beard, whiskers, flowing mane, scales, fiery tail and clouds of smoke/fire.
Here you can see it at the beginning stages.

I chose a sea-green colour for this cupboard to go with the oriental theme. I painted two layers of undercoat and then three layers of colour. This photo show this process half way through.

The inside of this cupboard was a real mess (I think something had been spilled in it once) so I decided to decorate it. I used a gold paper with a leaf pattern.

This is the finished design. I love the way the gold came out on the dragon, and it was fun to add art work. This cupboard did have a few scratches and dents but I think it just adds to its charm. I really like this piece.

This piece was painted with the following Farrow and Ball colour:
Vardo/Pitch Black