Once you go Black...

I will admit right now that I was a bit more productive this weekend than my last blog post would have led you to believe. The work depicted in the last one was actually completed on Saturday, and while I wrote the blog post on Sunday, there was more work that was completed in the early mornings of Saturday. As the title may have led you to believe I have successfully applied my base coat of paint. 

Unfortunately, the frantic cleaning that I had done at the end of Saturday was not good enough. While the black coat went on beautifully, the paint gun would occasionally (some might even say frequently) spit out large flecks of primer. These specks were coated in black paint and were rather large. I thought that once it had dried, I would be able to sand off the large bits. Unfortunately, it led to the side effect of just scraping off the layer of black paint on the ball of white primer, and this was only the first coat! I kept on spraying more coats with the hope that the primer specks would eventually stop coming out, and while the frequency of the little balls of white evil slowed, they just kept on coming. 

But then I happened to have an absolute stroke of genius! Or rather, knowing me it was probably innovation breeding from laziness. The white specks that were appearing all over my guitar will now be my new design! Of course, I will also take a toothbrush and some of that white paint I purchased when I painted the rose (hah, remember that?), and using that technique I learned back in high school art class - read: kindergarten - I used the toothbrush to fleck white paint all over the guitar. So now, with the black background and white specks... I have achieved..... SPACE. 

Or a space like a effect, rather. And what a perfect accident it is! With the recent landing of Curiosity on Mars, and my involvement in the space industry, this design really makes quite a lot of sense. And if anyone really doesn't enjoy the space theme, I can always write it off as being 'artistic.' And... here it is!

The paper bag is to keep it from being stuck on the carpet. 

So now the final stretch of painting awaits me. The lacquer. It's terrifying not just because breathing it in is extremely toxic, but because this is the final, irreversible step. Once it's coated, I have to be happy with what I see, because if I'm not, I have to sand the whole thing down back to the wood layer, and that would be a pain, which is undoing 2 months of (intermittent) work! Okay, I'm making it a bigger deal than it actually is. But painting is almost over, and I'll update you all this coming weekend. Wish me luck. 

Thanks for reading!