Anything to know about first painting?

[jator]

I'm about to paint my first project. It's made from basswood, and the only paint I have is from the company Testors, It's an Acrylic paint I bought for model airplanes. Should I get nicer paint? Or will this stuff work ok? Do I need to do anything to the wood before I paint it (seal, primer, sand)? I would rather not sand because I believe it takes away from the uniqueness of my carving.

-Thanks
Jason

[Claude]

Some seal, some don't. I often use water-based satin varnish, thinned by about 1/3 with water (2 drops varnish, 1 drop water...). Let dry, then paint with thinned paint. I prefer my paint to be a wash coat, so I thin it a quite a bit. Depending on color, I will usually use 4 or 5 drops water for each drop of paint. For white, I use 1 drop water and 1 drop paint. For black, I use 8-10 drops water per each drop of paint. One nice thing about using thin paints is that if the paint looks too thin when it's dry, it's easy to put on another coat. If you want strong vibrant solid colors and don't want the wood grain to show through, use the paint straight from the bottle. I don't care for the look, but some do. Here's an example: Oaxacan Wood Carvings Gallery El Caracol Zapoteca.

Claude

[Donna_T]

Jator,
If you get time, read back through months of postings on this thread and see all the various opinions on painting dos and don'ts.

Sometimes I seal a carving before I paint it..especially the face of a caricature. I may or may not seal the whole thing. Sometimes I just "spritz" the carving with an acryllic laquer spray (I hate to be a sexist here, but spritz would be like putting on a light once-over of hair spray on my hair!). Let it dry then paint.

I too use a diluted acryllic painting process. On occassion, I use oil/alkyd paints and even water colors. I'm trying to use a flow medium more and less water---but water is always handy! The excess water has a tendency to raise the grain of the carving so that it feels rough when dry. But once a carving is completely painted and dry, I tend to burnish t slightly before doing any final treatment. A wadded up brown paper bag makes a great tool for this. A really soft piece of Scotchbrite also works. Then I put on the final treatment or sealer to protect it from dust, hand oil, etc.

I always let a carving dry completely before adding further layers of color--like Claude said, you can always go back over the color with another coat to make it more vibrant, but it sure is hard to remove too much paint.

I like the wash method because it lets the wood show through. Painting with undiluted paint, right out of the bottle or tube or jar, makes the carving look like a piece of molded plastic. There are some exceptions, of course. When I do birds and fish, I start with gesso to completely cover the carving and give me a solid "canvas" that I'm going to complete negate the wood base and try to make them look as lifelike as possible. Then I don't want the wood to show through.

Good luck. I've never used testors on a carving--have used it to paint models and pine car derby entries. I'd sure try it on a similar scrap of wood before using it on a carving I'd worked hard on for hours and hours.

Donna T

[Eddy-Smiles]

Don't do it Jason. Read back through the posts as Donna suggests. First efforts can sometimes be disappointing enough. To ruin them by using the wrong paint only adds insult to injury!

[Iowa Carver]

Jason, I have used a lot of the Testors acrylics on model figures and such. I would not use them on basswood, it's a different formula and made to be thinned with a solvent. I would stick to the artists acrylics or better yet, the craft store bottles from Americana, Folkart, Apple Barrel, Delta Ceramcoat etc. Cheap and work great! Hope this helps.
Corey

[Mitchell]

Carve a scarp piece of wood (doesn't matter what you carve - just get it "clean') and paint it as a trial to test your methods to see what it will look like.

Testors is usually NOT acrylic, but oil based.

Go to WalMart and buy a few bottles of what Corey suggests. They are cheap.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

the acrylics from wallyworld are cheap and do a good job.....I am pretty sure much cheaper than testors! Isn't Testors oil base? Doesn't matter except more of a cleanup hassle.

[lorax]

I am going to do my first big project that is painted, and having only painted some minor carvings, it is a bit nerve wracking. I got a set of artists acrylics, and have been testing them out on some of my scraps. I'm pretty sure I want to seal it as well, but I didn't know if you can put acrylic paint over sanding sealer, varnish, laquer etc? and vise versa, to finish can you put lacquer over the top of a water based paint? I know you cant do this when you are painting walls etc, but about this kind of carving?

[Just Carving]

Do like Mitchell says, test on a piece of scrap. And not only the Testor's paints, but experiment--sealer, no sealer, oil paints, acrylics, Testors, water colors--I use the kiddies Crayolas sometimes, and they work out well. And the Crayolas can be bought in a lot of places at pretty good prices. I get mine at the food store. Have fun!

Bob

[Jim-Iowa]

Do be sure and test your paints on a practice piece first.
And be sure of what kind of paints your using.
I used to spray 150 gal of Ag Enamel per day(3 yrs of that was enough) and you could add coats within 24 hrs. If you sprayed over a day old paint job the thinners would lift the first coat and the only way to fix the crackle paint was to sandblast and start over.
I too am sure Testors is enamel.
But with any finish you should test if first on something that does not matter before using it on something you have put a lot of work into.