Paints

[dalboy]

Looking around the forum and at the many excellent pieces of carvings I see a number either painted or stained. My question is what type of paints or stains do you use and how do you apply them

[Robson Valley]

Most of the paint work is done with acrylics. Once on, they set up/dry fairly quickly so that you can paint over them. Oil paints take far too long to dry and watercolors are both transparent and
moveable if you touch them again with a wet brush. Acrylics are hot water & hand soap clean-up.
Two schools of thought = some people like to use the ready-mixed craft paints from places like Michael,s. Others use artist-grade tube and jar acrylics from art suppliers and mix up their own intermediate colors.
Then, we should spend a few pages discussing brushes (good threads here).
BTW, there's a really good general piece at the top of the Home Page about paints, stains and mixing.

[Claude]

RV makes some very good points. After the painting, there are also lots of ways to protect the wood and paint: varnish (oil-based and water-based), shellac, lacquer, waxes, oils (Boiled Linseed Oil, Tung oil, Danish oil, walnut oil, etc.), and mixtures of many of the above. Some put the BLO on first, then paint; others paint first, then put on BLO... Some use a sanding sealer before painting, and some don't. The Wood Finishing and Painting - Woodcarving Illustrated Message Board forum has had lots of discussions of the pros and cons of all of these - lots of reading for you.

Two key things to remember: finish it the way YOU like it to look, and when it doubt, try the paint/stain/oil/wax/whatever on a piece of scrap of the same variety of wood to see what happens. I save the cutoff pieces from cutting out my pattern on the bandsaw and use these as "test" pieces for paint et al.

Claude

[dalboy]

Thank you both

I missed that section Claude thanks for pointing it out