Image of the Day - The Spire

The Spire

Here is The Spire. She is 54 inches high on an 18" tile base. Her base was sealed twice. The first seal was done in natural clay with a foaming glue overlay. This is strong but for a piece so large I needed to make sure it would not eventually come lose from the base tile. So over the glue I used concrete mortar for a second layer which reaches up higher than the glue beneath and seals to the wood. I lost some of the wood doing it this way but it guarantees the piece will not come apart. 
Once drying occurred then the whole piece including the mortar and tile were black based. It was actually black based three times completely then spot painted another dozen times to make sure that every nook and cranny was black. This helps seal the wood and assures no color variations later. 

She is now ready for color detailing. The chosen color scheme is a variation of 5 shades of metallic green. Each section will be painted slightly different and as it rises towards the top I will apply pearlescent white to make it look almost snow covered towards the top. When all is said and done the plan is to apply a very fine sparkle to the final polyurethane coat to give it a slightly icy look. Will see if that works. I'll post follow up photos here as the detailing commences.  

The base of the Spire is the first to be detailed. I decided to use a variation of gold and metallic chocolate on just the concrete mortar. Their will be gold flecked throughout the whole piece but with the green variations next. 

Now the main detailing has been added. Using 10 different greens in combination, darker to lighter. 

Here you see the piece outside with its third coat of polyurethane drying in the sunshine. 

Here are the final touches for the Spire. Using heavy polyfill I've simulated a cloud deck and some wisps higher up. You can't see it at this angle but I painted the base plate to look like ocean with islands in it far below. So if the polyfill separates a bit there is still something beneath it.