Lamp Makeover Using Soft Art Pastels (The Art Medium)

So I hear you. I’m still going to try to do something to even out the splotchiness and hopefully reduce the orange tone. Obviously, I still need to reattach that missing drawer trim, and I might also try to remove that bottom shelf. So with the console staying a wood tone, I decided to do something else with the lamps instead. I decided to keep these lamps and give them a makeover. (Just a random FYI, I do not like buffet lamps. They’re just not my style, so those were never an option for me.)

But first, I needed to decide on the general color that I wanted the lamps to be. I chose three different options from my huge selection of spray paint that I already had on hand, and I tested out all three colors on one lamp. First, I tried this darker green.

I also tried this brighter green. Again, this would just serve as the base color for the pastels that would go over it.

And finally, I tried out pink.

Pink was the obvious winner to me. The other two kind of got lost against the mural.

After giving the two lamp bases a couple of coats of spray paint and allowing them to dry completely, I started with my idea for the pastels. My original idea was to do a gradient design, with the color darker at the bottom and gradually becoming lighter towards the top. I used a total of five different colors starting with black on the very bottom, followed by red, two shades of pink, and ending with white at the top.

And then I used my finger to blend them all together and…I didn’t love it.

But I did love the darker reddish-pink color towards the bottom. So then I decided to blend all the colors together randomly and see what that would create. So I started again, this time putting the colors (minus the black this time) randomly over the lamp base.

And this time, when I blended them all together, I absolutely loved it. It had such a beautiful, rich, organic look to it. Here’s a comparison of the spray painted lamp on the right and the lamp covered in the pastels on the left.

I very carefully brought it into the entryway to see what it looked like against the mural. It was perfect. But of course, at this stage, the base couldn’t be touched without the pastels coming off on my hands. So I knew they would have to be sealed.

But I absolutely loved the rich, organic look of the pastels.

The top was still taped off, so the lamp shade wouldn’t fit properly. But I balanced it as carefully as possible to get an idea of what the finished lamp would look like. It was perfect.

And then I made a huge mistake. Thankfully, I think it worked out, but I’ve learned a big lesson for next time I want to use pastels. Instead of doing a quick google search to find out the proper way to seal pastels (you have to use a special fixative spray for pastels), I grabbed my Rust-Oleum clear sealer in a matte finish and sprayed the lamp base. I knew immediately that I had made a mistake. As soon as that spray hit the pastels, it turned the pastels much darker. But I had already started, so I had to commit and do the whole thing. I hoped that it might lighten up as it dried, but it didn’t. Thankfully, I really love the darker color, too. So I decided to just go with it. It still has that organic, imperfect look to it that I liked about it before I sprayed the clear coat, but I did like it better before the clear coat.

But overall, I really love how they turned out. And now I know for next time that I have to purchase a special spray to seal pastels.

I’m still working on the lampshade issue. The lampshades in their original color were way too stark white for this area. I tried to tea stain this one, but it ended up streaky. I’m not sure what caused the streakiness unless it’s the adhesive used to attach the fabric to the backing that isn’t allowing the tea stain to soak through the fabric evenly. I do like how the tea stain toned down the white, but I can’t live with the streaks, so I’ll have to find another solution.

I think the tea-stained color is just right, though. Here’s a look at the tea-stained shade with the original white shade. There’s not much darker, but it’s just enough to make a difference.

But I do love these lamp bases. I think the color is just right. I really love the more organic look over the spray-painted look. And I think the color turned out just right, even if they did end up darker than I had planned.

So now that I have the lamps and console table decisions made, I hope to get this area finished over the weekend so that I can move on to the next project.