Thank John Sliney! =D Those were his instructions in one of his books! He said just use a candle! I had some cheap white emergency candles laying around and they work great! You can get a whole box of em for $1 at the dollar store! Good luck Belle!! Hope it works for you. Of course you can use any colors over the black paint or vice versa....if you want to paint say red or orange on the bottom and then black on top it would look pretty cool I think!! ~Anj

Belle,
While the look you are ending up with using this technique gives you an aged look, it's called using a "resist" to either keep the paint from "sticking" to the surface or makes it easier to remove a single different colored layer of paint in selected areas.

I'd recommend you seal over the last layer after you've removed the selected areas of paint. Then decorate.

John Sliney designed some nice folk art designs. Using a resist is an old technique that can be used with several different mediums. Silk dyes, watercolors or acrylics. For instance. Have fun with it!

Lynda