[Coffeeman]

Here is my completed my David Sabol roughout of "Squirrel on Mushroom". An earlier postings showed it prior to painting. My lighting arrangement faded out some of the fall colors on the leaves, but you'll get an idea of what I was capturing with the colors.

Thanks, Bill

[squbrigg]

A great carving, delightful.

Bob

[GaryMc]

You did a great job on the carving and the painting, I really like it!
GaryMc

[GardenGnome]

I really like your work here. A charmer. My wife likes it too.

Christopher the Garden Gnome

[Ashbys]

Bill ,

nice work!

Ash

[bygeorge]

Bill, what type of paint did you use for this?

Chuck

[masker001]

Great job.Love it.

[Tom H]

Great job on the carving and the paint/finish. It's a magical piece. Tom H

[Irishman]

Very nice. I can see that carving being a collector item.
Patrick

[Coffeeman]

Chuck,

I paint with only acrylics that I buy at the crafts shops, walmart, etc.

When I paint, I use thin washes of color, thinned with "miniwax water based wood stain base" I buy it at Home Depot, qrt lasts me at least a year.

However, on the leaves in this piece, I did do something different. In order to capture the fall colors of a leaf going through the "color changes", I needed to make the colors transition into each other. With that said, each color was stroked onto the leaf with "blending gel". I squirt out a blotch of gel to work from, then dip my brush into the gel, then into the color, then stroke it over the leaf, this blends the colors into each other.

When I do this "blending action" I don't thin out the color, I take the color at full strength and just pull a little off with the tip of my brush and let the blending gel do the thinning as I stroke.

On the piece, the gel was only used on the leaves, all other parts were painted as I normally paint, thinned down.

Hope this helps you, give it a try, you;ll find the blending gel right with the acrylics.

Bill