Bringing life back to the dead

For a while, I had it in my head that I wanted to paint skulls.  Morbid? Nah.  The desert is full of dead things.  So I put the hubby on a mission: bring me home cow skulls. 

Elly was super excited that dad brought home jerky.  I picked one with sheaths, pulled them off and soaked the skull in a bleach/water solution for a week.  Tutorials online suggest using a peroxide mixture but bleach was easier to procure.  Besides, I knew I was going to basecoat the skulls an off white as opposed to stay with the bare bone color.  The sheaths got a few good coats of clear coat.

Next: tape, newspaper and paint.  I chose a dark turquoise spray paint.

Pulled the paint off and was thrilled until I (unsurprisingly) noticed that there was bleed through onto the white.  I thought my solution would be to tape off and paint a line of copper color (acrylic) to cover it.  Except that bled through too.  I ended up having to free hand anyway. 

It was rough watching me paint.

I stripped some copper wire out of scrap wiring from an old project and the hubby and I wrapped it around the horns.  Another quick coat of clear and wham! I LOVE IT!

I'm already soaking another skull.  I plan on hanging them under my covered patio.  Until the next one....