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Product Description
Today's decoupage is not your grandmother's decoupage: delicate Victorian or floral images on dainty plates buried under innumerable coats of heavy varnish. Contemporary decoupage works are made with flea market finds, cherished letters or photos, magazine clippings, handmade papers, unique prints, or any other image that strikes the artist's fancy, then it's applied to trays, tables, lamps, walls, floors, furniture, or even ceilings. In New Decoupage, author Durwin Rice takes a fresh look at this traditional craft, demonstrating how to creatively transform your environment using just a few simple materials. He offers complete instructions for more than 18 unique
projects, ranging from a delicate vase resembling fine porcelain to a dining room table adorned with generations of family photos, from an entire row of kitchen cabinets featuring pictures of your favorite chefs to a stylish faux marble coffee table.
Beginning with a brief history of the art, Rice moves on to detail the fundamental techniques of modern decoupage, showing you how to clean and prepare various surfaces, select and cut images, and choose the right adhesive for a specific project. Two simple gluing lessons demonstrate the basic skills needed to complete any decoupage project. The next section offers instructions for smaller decoupage projects, such as an elegant cachepot filled with exquisite decoupaged eggs, a serving tray adorned with favorite images, or a six-sided wooden block puzzle decorated on all sides. Finally, Rice provides ideas and inspiration for larger decoupage projects, remaking plain furniture, mundane appliances, and even whole rooms into beautiful works of art. Lavishly illustrated with nearly 200 full-color photographs, New Decoupage brings the art of decoupage into the present day.
Amazon.com Review
If all craft books were as attractive, brilliantly conceived, and downright amusing as this one, the craft world would be a better place. Glorious projects, beautiful photos, thorough instructions, and terrific coverage of all the groundwork make for lovely viewing, enjoyable reading, and endless inspiration.
Master decoupeur Durwin Rice is not only a true artist with scissors and glue, he's a lively writer whose sense of humor and deft handling of the subject makes even the most mundane tasks (like surface preparation or sealing a finished piece) sound like fun. He debunks the obsessiveness with which "Old Decoupage" was created and which still puts off some would-be decoupeurs today, such as the tendency to apply 30 or more coats of sealant ("You want to protect your work from scratches--not Hurricane Andrew") or the inclination for fanatical cutting ("You are master of the image, not the image of you"). He covers all manner and size of objects with his wondrous creations: plates, vases, trays, eggs, tables, cabinets, walls, ceilings, even the refrigerator. Clearly this is a man obsessed, not with the needlessly labor-intensive approach of yesteryear, but with the urge to decoupage the world. This is not only a lesson on how to create spectacular decoupage; it's a lesson on how to produce a masterful craft book. --Amy Handy
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