Faded Garden Table Redo

A while a go I did this table with stain. It was a technique I saw in several sites on the internet and it was surprisingly easy to do.
My fail? I left the tables out year round and in Jersey, winter can do nasty things to art work. Did I not seal them good enough? Was it an especially harsh winter? Probably yes to all of the above. :(

So, I've been wanting to update it and didn't think the stain would work again so I dragged out my acrylic paint and a can of clear sealer and went to work.

First I sanded the top to have a smooth canvas. Then painted the top black so I'd have a good base and maybe the paint would help seal the wood a bit so I could work on it.

Next I filled in the peacock body in with a couple of shades of blue to give it some texture.
The green feather-like area was put in with strokes of green, yellow, and purple. After the wavy lines were in place and still wet, I dipped a paper towel in water and dragged it from center to the outer edges to get a blurry streaked effect.

Next the eyes of the peacock feathers were painted with a blend of orange/yellow, a heart shaped blue, and purple dot.  After that dried, long wavy lines were shadowed in to create that feathery look.

On the blue body, the eye was painted in yellow for the iris and outlined with white. The beak is an off white. The hair like spikes on top of the head were outlined in black and highlighted with a blend of yellow/orange (heavy on the yellow) Dots were placed on top of the spikes in white, purple and yellow. 

For the body lines of purple were placed just to give it a little feathery effect (without actually painting feathers.)

Three coats of sealer were sprayed over the top and sides to (hopefully) give it some protection from the elements.