Finishing Techniques for Wood Crafters E-Book

Lora S. Irish

• Herausgeber: Fox Chapel Publishing
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 141

Beschreibung

Learn how to choose, prepare, and apply the perfect finish for your next creative wood project! This practical guide to finishing techniques shows you how to create flawless finishes each and every time. Nationally known artist and best-selling author Lora S. Irish presents a wide array of beautiful acrylic paint techniques and oil staining/antiquing methods, with easy-to-follow instructions and workshop photographs that illustrate every step. Finishing Techniques for Wood Crafters takes you through all the basics of painting and staining any woodcarving, pyrography, or gourd project. Sample projects throughout the book demonstrate specific techniques—like applying a vintage finish to a chip carved fish; creating realistic skin tones on a wood spirit cane topper; enhancing a Celtic knot dragon with an interesting stone effect; and more. Once you master these artistic techniques you can mix and match them on any project.

Leseprobe

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to extend my deepest thanks to Chris Reggio, Colleen Dorsey, and David Fisk for their excellent work in creation, development, and refinement of this manuscript. As an author it is a wonderful experience to be working with such a well-skilled team.

© 2018 by Lora S. Irish and Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc., 903 Square Street, Mount Joy, PA 17552.

Finishing Techniques for Wood Crafters is an original work, first published in 2018 by Fox Chapel Publishing Company, Inc. The patterns contained herein are copyrighted by the author. Readers may make copies of these patterns for personal use. The patterns themselves, however, are not to be duplicated for resale or distribution under any circumstances. Any such copying is a violation of copyright law.

For a printable PDF of the patterns used in this book, please contact Fox Chapel Publishing at [email protected], quoting the ISBN and title of this book, as well as the pattern or patterns required.

Print ISBN 978-1-56523-929-6eISBN 9781607655015

The Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress.

To learn more about the other great books from Fox Chapel Publishing, or to find a retailer near you, call toll-free 800-457-9112 or visit us at www.FoxChapelPublishing.com.

We are always looking for talented authors. To submit an idea, please send a brief inquiry to [email protected].

INTRODUCTION

In this book, I will take you through the very basic steps for painting and staining any woodcarving, pyrography project, or gourd. We will look at solid coloring with acrylics, stain painting with oils, combinations of the two, and many special effect techniques. Techniques can be mixed, matched, and used on whatever project you want to work on. There are no surprise instructions here or secret techniques—just the basics that will help you create a strong, clean finished work each and every time.

The sample projects I have used throughout this book to demonstrate techniques are varied, from ice fishing decoys to a Celtic knot dragon to a wood spirit cane topper. These are quick, easy, and innovative little carvings that can be adapted to all of the painting styles that we will explore, and are meant to impress upon you the great variety of projects that you can paint and finish.

This book does not teach you how to carve, wood burn, or create any kind of wood craft—it is made for readers who already have some experience creating with wood and who are looking for instructions on how to paint the projects on their work tables. So, while I am not providing the step-by-step carving or pyrography instructions for these painting projects, I have included the patterns for each project in case you find them useful and want to create them yourself.

In many of the photos in this book, you will see a ball-head straight pin in the base of a fish’s tail. This well-set pin can be slid into a cut in a cardboard box flap that allows the fish to hang freely while drying. Place several books inside the box to keep it from tipping.

For many of the painting techniques in this book, I have used one of a small grouping of basswood “Whittle Fish” (as I call them) that I carved. Each Whittle Fish was created from a 1 ¼" x 1 ¼" x 3" (3 x 3 x 7.5cm) practice block using a bench knife, a V-gouge, a large round gouge, and 220-grit sandpaper. You can find detailed carving instructions on page if you want to practice some of the techniques we’ll cover in this book on the same fish that I use to demonstrate the techniques.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: BEFORE YOU PAINT

CHAPTER 2: ALL ABOUT BRUSHES, PAINTS, AND OTHER MEDIA

CHAPTER 3: LEARNING TO MIX COLORS

CHAPTER 4: PAINTING TECHNIQUES

Solid Acrylic Colors over a Primer: Trick Fish

Simple Blending with Acrylics: Dotty Fish

Acrylic Wash Painting on an Oiled Surface: Floral Fish

Dry Brushing Acrylics over Acrylics: Turtle

Marbleizing: Stone Fish

Vintage Finish: Chip Carved Fish

Acrylics over Oil: Bird

Splattering: Sectional Fish

CHAPTER 5: ADVANCED IDEAS AND SPECIAL EFFECTS

Skin Tones: Wood Spirit Cane Topper

Wood Grain Effect: Wood Spirit

Oil Staining over Dry Brushing: Canada Goose

Stone Effect: Celtic Dragon

Milk Paint Acrylics: Mayan High Priest

CHAPTER 6: BONUS: CARVING A WHITTLE FISH

CHAPTER 7: PATTERNS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1:

BEFORE YOU PAINT

Before you even touch a paint-loaded brush to your carving or pyrography project, you need to consider several factors that will directly affect how your final coloring will appear. Let’s take a quick look at how the surface texture of your project, the type of pre-treatment you use, and different primers can all affect the finished result. We’ll also look at factors to keep in mind after completing your painting.

Wood Surface Textures

Whether you are carving or wood burning, the final texture and smoothness of the wood surface directly affects how evenly any coloring can be applied. Here is a summary of a variety of ways you can alter the final texture of your work and how that final texture can affect the painting. This list is sequential; you can do any number of these steps, and each step will make your surface smoother and smoother, but you don’t have to do all of the steps, and you can skip around as long as you stay in order. (This is generally speaking—but there are always exceptions, so experiment and see what works for you.)

1.Flat Plane Carving or Fine Shaved Carving.

Finish your wood carving by checking for any rough stop cuts, small un-cut chips in the deep crevices, and coarse V-gouge strokes. Clean these areas with a sharp bench knife before you begin any painting steps. While those small, loose fibers of wood might not show in the unpainted wood stage of your project, once you apply color they will become very obvious.

2.Sanding with 220- to 320-Grit Sandpaper.

Sanding smooths wood out, dulling or removing the texture of the cuts. Sanding grit can leave very fine, shallow lines in the wood that can catch blended colors or antiquing. Work the sandpaper or sanding pad in the direction of the wood grain whenever possible.

Sanding a relief carving.

3.Removing Dust.

A dust-free surface is always ideal. Remove any dust left over from carving and sanding steps with a soft cloth. While paint may cover up a small area of dust on your work, that paint will eventually pop off the project because it never adhered directly to the wood surface.

This project was sanded well after carving, which allowed for even application of the base colors. Of course, the splattering effect used on top of the base colors would effectively mask any uneven color application.

4.Polishing with Heavy Kraft Paper.

A crumpled 6" (15cm) square sheet of heavy kraft paper, like a piece of a paper bag or paper packing material, will polish a wood surface. Kraft paper works like an extremely fine sandpaper and removes those last few loose wood fibers or fine sanding lines.

5.Buffing with a Soft Cloth.

A lint-free, soft, cotton cloth can be used to buff or polish a wood surface after the carving or burning is finished. Not only does the cloth remove any remaining sanding dust or wood fibers, but it also can add a bit of sheen if you use firm pressure all over.

6.Burnishing.

A wood project can be burnished by rubbing the surface briskly with a small piece of similar wood. This rubbing creates a smooth, polished surface with a soft, semi-gloss sheen. Burnishing is a final step that allows you to get the smoothest surface possible, particularly when preceded by sanding and buffing. See page for more information on burnishing.

Burnishing is a good pre-treatment when you want easy blending of hues for both acrylics and oils.

Depth and Intensity of Carved Texture

Deep, textured cuts in your carvings will hold more shading color and more antiquing/staining than shallow cuts. You can choose to use a variety of cut depths in your carving, from very smooth, flat planes to deeply incised details, to capture more color changes in the finished project. A light texture in your carving, as shown in the tiki pieces, can accent your color work, especially when you are dry brushing or antiquing the final painting, by allowing color to concentrate in the textured areas. Heavy textures, as shown in the wood spirit, are wonderful for dry brushing, antiquing, and for faux wood, stone, and marble effects. The deep, textured cuts really grab the color.

Wood Pre-Treatments

The woods that we paint tend to be very porous—they absorb water, oils, and colors quickly. Basswood, for example, which is the most common wood for character carving and fish decoys, is extremely absorbent and will need pre-treatment before any painting in order to create the smoothest paint finish possible. Here are some examples of pre-treatments that can be used on wood projects before actually painting. Most of the projects in this book use one of the following pre-treatments.

Sanding Sealer

Sanding sealer is a brush-on pre-finish that hardens the top surface of the wood, making the loose wood fibers stiff enough to sand away. Usually one to two light coats are applied to the raw wood and allowed to dry thoroughly. The sealer is then sanded using fine 220- to 320-grit sandpaper. Basswood, poplar, and butternut are all common carving woods that have a soft, finely grained surface that can be hard to sand to a smooth, glass-like finish. Sanding sealer soaks into the upper surface of these woods, hardening the wood fibers and making them easier to remove. Use a sanding sealer coat before painting if you are having problems teasing out those hard-to-reach loose wood splinters. The smoother your wood surface is, the smoother your color application will be.

This fish was pre-treated with a reworkable fixative spray sealer.

Reworkable Fixative Spray Sealer

Many art media techniques need a fixative to seal one layer of work before applying additional layers of color. A reworkable fixative spray sealer does just that. It seals and protects the color work you have already done on the project, yet allows new color to be applied to its lightly textured surface. Reworkable sealers can also be used to pretreat a raw wood surface, acting similar to sanding sealer by hardening and strengthening the upper surface of the wood. By applying one light coat of reworkable spray sealer to raw wood, you can control how much color soaks into the wood with the first application of thinned and wash coat paints.

Water Wash

For very soft woods, such as basswood or poplar, just a few light coats of water can pre-moisten a carving enough to allow acrylic or craft paints to flow smoothly onto the surface of the carving.

Acrylic Wash

Acrylic paints can be thinned with water, in at least a one-to-one ratio, to create an acrylic wash pre-treatment. Such washes allow you to blend and mix several colors or tones on the wood to create a base coat for a painting.

This dragon was painted starting with a multicolored acrylic wash.

Oil and Turpentine Coating

Mixing boiled linseed oil with turpentine at a one-to-one ratio makes a wonderful pre-treatment that allows the wood grain to show through the paint. This oil mix is often a pre-treatment base for dry brushing both acrylics and oil paints.

Spray or Brush-On Sealer

There is a wide variety of spray and brush-on finishes that can be used to seal wood before applying color. Matte and semi-matte sealers work best because they have a small amount of texture that captures and holds the layers of paint, as opposed to super-smooth gloss sealers. Spray and brush-on sealers are most often used as the finishing coat, meant to be the last layer of work in your color application, as they completely seal the wood surface and repel water, oil, and new layers of paint from penetrating into the wood. However, when you want to slowly build up layers of transparent colors, such as when oil rouging for skin tones (see page), one light coating of a spray or brush-on sealer sets the color layer below it and provides a slick, smooth surface for the new layer of coloring.

Primers

A primer is an acrylic base coat that is applied over the raw wood before the individual colors are painted. Primer blocks out the wood grain so that the paints take on a bright, clean appearance. There are pre-mixed primers available that have little or no shine, which allows the paint to adhere well. However, most pre-mixed primers are pure white and have a gritty finish. If you are using a pre-mixed primer, thin it on a palette with 2 parts primer to 1 part water.

You can also create your own primer using the paints you have on hand, which is what I prefer to do. I usually thin my primer with several drops of water added to a quarter-sized puddle of primer on the palette. The extra water in the mix slows the drying rate of the paint to give you extra time to smooth out each brushful of color. The colors you will be using on your project determine what color of primer you should use, which is another reason to use your own paints as primers. Here is a breakdown of some primer color options and when to use them.

White primers work very well for pale and pastel colors and for white areas.

If an area will be red, orange, purple, bright green, or bright blue, you can use a pale gray primer. Because red and orange are pure hues, they contain no white, black, or gray coloration. This means they are semi-transparent, allowing some light to show through thin coats. A gray primer blocks the light and makes the color appear much more opaque.

Gray primer

Medium brown primer

Mustard yellow, tan, and medium brown primers work well for yellows, medium and dull greens, orange, rust, teal, and skin tones.

Blended color primer

For some projects, you may want a primer coat made up of several blended colors. For example, you can place a small amount of golden yellow, tan, and medium brown on your palette. As you apply the primer coat, you can randomly pick up a little color from each color puddle. The colors will blend as you brush them onto the wood, giving the primer a mottled effect. As shown in the marbleizing technique (page) and the wood grain technique (page), using a mottled or blended primer adds to the mottled, textured appearance of the color coats. If your final color application will be an uneven, blended coloring, try using a blended primer as your base coat.

Final Finishes

Once a project is complete, you may want to give all raw wood, burned wood, and painted surfaces a final sealer or finishing coat to protect them from the environment and from UV rays. As we work through the techniques and projects in this book, we will see several options for final finishes you can use. They can include boiled linseed oil (BLO) mixed with turpentine, Tung oil or Danish oil, spray or brush-on polyurethane sealer, brush-on acrylic sealer, a rub and buff wax finish, and hand buffing with a soft cloth. Here is a brief summary of each finish, followed by more details about each one.

•Acrylic Sealer: A soft polymer sealer, acrylic sealer is available in multiple sheens from dull matte to high gloss, dries quickly, dries crystal clear, and does not change or affect the color of the wood or paint. Use on decorative, highly detailed painted projects.

•Paste Wax: This is easy to apply, leaves a non-slick finish, seals the wood surface without leaving a plastic or oil feel, and can be reapplied over the lifetime of the piece. Use on any project that will be handled, held, or gripped.

•Hand Buffing: Some coloring agents like watercolors, pastels, and colored pencils do need a finishing layer or sealer applied to the project to protect the colors from damage or moving. Oil paints, which penetrate into the wood fibers, and acrylic paints, which are polymer-based, do not require a protective sealing layer, as they create their own semi-hard, durable, dirt-resistant finish. To strengthen that self-sealing surface, however, you can buff the painted surface with a dry, clean cloth after the paint is thoroughly dried. Buffing acts like a polishing process, leaving the painted surface with a soft sheen and smooth feel. If you want to avoid excess use of oils or chemicals, or just want a vintage look, try hand buffing.

•Boiled Linseed Oil: This works as a pre-treatment that can be covered with other sealers, infuses the wood deeply with the oil, prevents the project from excessive drying, can be reapplied over the lifetime of the piece, and does not hide or cover the wood grain of the work. Use whenever you may want to make carving or painting changes to the project after a finish is applied.

•Danish Oil: