Today I had my MDF cut ready to put in my space and use as my floor. As soon as this was cut I hit a few minor hurdles, I was unable to find a trolley that could fit such huge pieces of MDF on (most of them were already in use.) So this delayed my day, as I wanted to start painting early to ensure I was able to do as many coats as I needed, including the drying time etc. After finally having a trolley I brought my MDF to my space and placed it on the floor, when I suddenly realised that the boards weren’t level and when put together they left an obvious line of separation. I was initially going to tape this line but after speaking to Laura and other tutors, I was told this would rip easily if someone were to stand on my floor. I was also told that poly-filler would be no good as it would most likely crack especially with any movement to the boards. Eventually I decided to use flexi filler (silicone) to fill this gap. This at first worked perfectly.
I then began to paint my floor ‘luminous lime.’ As soon as I put this on the boards I was happy with my choice of colour as it was the perfect sickly neon green shade that I wanted to enhance my patchwork surrounding. The boards needed around 3 coats of paint to be fully saturated and opaque. If I had taken time to think about the floor longer I would have probably painted it white to start with the save myself having to use so many coats of green. But I am still happy with the overall pay off of the colour. Once the third layer of emulsion dried I began to varnish the floor. Instantly this gave my floor an extra element and really reflected the light like I wanted. Only issue was that the varnish took 16-20 hours to dry between layers so I was unable to do the next coat until the day later. After finishing the vanish I was happy with the finish of the floor, although the line separating the pieces of MDF has become visible again after the coats of paint, I am hoping to fill this in or make sure my centre piece is covering any obvious cracks. Although I am aware that some things just cant be helped and there will be parts I am not 100% happy with.
Overall I am very pleased with the outcome of the floor even if it did take more time than expected. I definitely feel that it is going to add to the all round installation.
Courtney Flay's Fine Art Blog. 