Oldie but Goodie

[Irish]

As we are rooting through all of our 'stuff' from the moving I came across my first relief wood spirit carving.

It's done on a 3/4" x 9" x 24" butternut board and originally was the door to a wall cabinet. The Grizzly Bear is a sample of what the Wood Spirit wall cabinet looked like.

The coloring was done with oil paint rouging. I used sanding sealer and steel wool first to remove all of the fuzzy bunny fibers then gave the door front several light coatings of polyurethane spray with steel wool in between coats. So I started with a very smooth finish.

When that was dry I antiqued the carving with a mix of burnt umber oil paint and linseed oil, half and half. That was allowed to dry for about a week. Then a couple more coats of polyurethane spray.

The rouging is fun and simple. You put a little oil paint on a palette. You wrap a piece of scrap cloth like t-shirt material around the end of your finger. Pick up a little color on the cloth ... bloat (SP) it several times on your tile to evenly spread the paint over the cloth ... then gently rub in a circular motion over the area of the carving you want that color. You want a very very very thin coat of color ... I mean REALLY THIN!

After all the areas have a very light coat of color ... you should just BARELY be able to see the first several color coats ... you give the carving a new coating of poly spray.

So ...

1. Poly spray
2. Pick up color on cloth covered finger
3. Rub in a light coat of color to the carving

Repeat 1, 2 and 3 about one dozen times or more ending with a coating of poly spray.

What happens is you get a colored glass effect to the carving where you can see through the colored thickness of the built up polyurethane to the original antiqued steps below.

Susan

[Ron T]

Hi Susan,

It looks like a "lion" spirit. Nevertheless, a very nice design and piece. Thank you for the finishing tips. They are always welcome.