Painting Your Carvings

[Captain_Bandaid]

: I went to a craft show today and met a great guy selling his carvings. They were pretty good and very reasonable but he wasn't selling much. He painted them with thick paint and finished them with a glossy polyurethane. They looked like plastic! Please, newbies, paint your carvings with DILUTED paints so that the wood grain shows through. Leave those tool marks in place so people can tell that it was carved by hand and SIGN (and date) YOUR WORK! You may be famous some day and everyone will want your early work!!!!

[John_T.]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

You are right Captain,
Always sign and date your work. I have a friend who has my first pair of canvasback decoys. Everyone that sees them, sees my name. What I find intresting is seeing one of your pieces and looking at the date, kind of brings you back to the day you signed it.

[Captain_Bandaid]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

Yep, it also gives you a time line on your progress as a carver. Of course, that could be a real blow to your ego if you are not progressing much!

[woodcutter]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

???HELP ??? I've carved a near life sized figure(waist up) from some kind of pine(wide spaced rings) hard to carve.
My problem is that I have gotten to the GESSO stage and find myself lost. What is the best method for painting? :-[ :-[ spraying(don't have one) or using a brush(never done it)
This is a fairly good carving and I'd hate to ruin it at this stage, I need whatever help I can get. :-/

[kaiserb]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

The painting technique I use on most carvings is as follows:

• Base coat the portion you want to paint with danish oil. Only coat what you can paint in an hour or so.
• Mix oil paint with danish oil and apply to coated area.
• Let dry.
• Apply top coat 72 hours after last paint is applied.

[King_of_Blades]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

Question: I just bought a set of watercolor paints. My previous experience with these taught me that watercolors tend to come in paste form, to which you apply a wet brush to make a useful paint.

These, however, came in small 6cc plastic tubes, in the form of what appears to be a liquid dye. They did not come with instructions. I assume that I'll need to dilute them with equal parts water, but I've never used watercolors in this format, and I have no experience with painting wood (with anything other than latex, anyway).

Does anyone know about watercolors? Is the liquid form for watercolors normal? What is the proper way to prepare them for use?
???
~Andrew

[Captain_Bandaid]

Re: Painting Your Carvings

Modern, high quality watercolors come in tubes, in a thick water suspension. Squeeze a small portion onto your mixing tray and add clean, clear water to it ( a little at a time) and mix gently with an OLD worn out brush (doing this will break the hairs and you don't want to ruin a new brush). Add water or color to suit your needs. It is ok to let the paint dry on your pallet and re-wet it to use it again. I have used watercolors on my early carvings but switched to acrylics because they are less expensive, have a HUGE selection of colors (better to have a good supply of a specific color than to try to mix a new batch to match what you did yesterday!) and, if you seal the wood before painting, they cover better and more evenly.