I am a newbie to wood carving and have only done a few hand held stylized type pieces and some line carving on hiking sticks. Have been reading here about painting and things like a wash(?) and would like to know if there is a good tutorial some where for people like myself, thanks?

[Donna_T]

John,
I'm not aware of any tutorial on painting our woodcarvings. Most of us start out by putting paint full strength on our carving but are dissatisfied because it makes them look garish and 'plastic.' Whether you use oil, watercolors, or acrylics, I think you will be happier with the end result if you dilute, dilute, dilute your paint. Some suggest 10/1 (10 parts of water to one part of paint) and that's a good place to start. As each coat dries (you can speed it along with a hair dryer) you keep applying another until you get the look/color you want.

This process tints the wood rather than covers it up--and actually let the wood/grain show through and highlight your carving. The one place where I don't use this ratio of dilution of paints is on eyes. There I thin the paint only slightly to make it go on smoother.

Some people advocate wetting the carving all over before painting to make the process easier and sometimes I do that and sometimes I don't. Some even like to brush on a mixture of boiled linseed oil/mineral spirits, wiping off the excess, and letting the carving dry a couple of days before painting with either oils or water based paints. This gives a patina or richness to the carving.

The thin wash style of painting doesn't work for things like decoys where you use gesso and don't want any part of the wood to show through.

The long of it, Jordan, is that carvers usually try all kinds of processes to get to a 'look' that they want. We're suckers for trying anything to see if it will enhance our carvings.

Good luck!

Donna T

Thanks so much for the info, I had gotten some water based paints at Wally-World and had painted an eagle head I had carved on a hiking stick and used it as it came out of the little containers and was not too happy with the way it came out, as you say it looked plastic. So what you are saying that when you speak of a wash you mean a heavy dilution with water and many coats applied. Thanks again, Steve