I wanted to turn my floor into a magic carpet. A floor like no other. It was a plain marine ply floor that I saw as the canvas that I’d been looking for to turn my desire line/contour/journey/water current/mapping drawings into a large scale painting that you can traverse.

The drawings had come out of my fascination with desire lines, watching water currents and having grown up with geological maps.

First I sanded the floor with a small orbital sander (we run on a small solar system). I did an 80 grade sand, 120 and 240 grade sand. The wood was then stained with a home made stain of coffee, steel wool and vinegar. This was to take the yellow out of the pine and bring up the wood grain, I ended up doing 3 coats. I then applied 2 coats of the purple wash colour so the grain of the wood is visible.

For the circles I used the different sized pots of paint I had from painting the house. All the dash lines were made up as I went based on the flow/desire lines of the space and were all done purely by hand. It’s a kind of meditative process. Finally 3 coats of a water-based satin clear was applied to make it hard wearing.

Would love to do another floor! Contact me for more info.