Painted Ceiling Medallions

A client brought me a small challenge last week- to paint some stock ceiling medallions he and his wife had purchased to match the canopies of their new ceiling fixtures (the smaller round item at the top).

I had done some work for them before in painting the walls of their two story foyer in their Victorian style home with a lovely two color ragged finish. I just adored both of them, real sweethearts. So of course I said ‘No problem!’

He dropped them off right at my in home studio along with the canopy to one of the new fixtures the medallions would need to match. Since it would take several steps to achieve the look they needed, I could work on them during my off time from another project.

I studied the finish on the canopy and selected the paint shades that would give me the right look for the medallions. Several colors of background paint were applied and allowed to dry. Then, I overlaid the base coat with a few different shades of metallic paint until I had a good match. After that layer dried I applied a bit of poly-acrylic, and they were done. White polystyrene goes from plain to fantastic in 6 or 7 easy steps.