Confused

[Bandaid]

With regard to painting our projects, the "rules" say that you can put oils over acrylic but not acrylic over oils. However, there are a number of carvers in the group that use BLO or Danish oil, among other oil based products, as a sealer prior to painting with acrylics with no problems and in fact have a great deal of success. Any thoughts?

[real good]

a lot of carvers use BLO as a sealer and then paint be careful when useing it

[Mitchell]

Rules are made to be broken....

Actually, I use this technique of painting acrylic over an oil mixture sealer. Technically, it should not work based on the rule that you mention - however it works for me. To make matters worse, I paint the acrylic on top of the oil mixture often while it's still wet.

The acrylic is very thin when I mix it and appears even thinner over the oil. It does rub off relatively easy - until I put a final coat of polyurethane over it.

[mpounders]

Scientifically, if you put something that dries fast (acrylics) over something that dries slow (oils), you will have a finish that may crack or not be adhered good. I believe the BLO method works because it is absorbed into the wood and drys somewhat, as opposed to being on the surface of the wood. Danish and tung oils I believe dry to form a hardened surface, and then the acrylics are just painted on top of that. I have used BLO in the past, and have seen some not so desirable changes in carvings after a few years. I prefer acrylics with polyurethane finish now days.

[Bandaid]

Thanks for the input guys.

[Dileon]

Artist say there are no rules.....find out what is best for you, that means experiment and do your own research. No rules......just like medicine...., one day it will save you life and the next it will kill you.

[Robson Valley]

Dileon is so right: splash some paint on scrap wood. Do the definitive experiments.
Me? I am assembling a sack of scrap wood (western red cedar) to recreate all of my color charts
from watercolor painting to wood carvings. Quite an exciting prospect to see what happens on wood.

[JimSawyer]

Originally Posted by Robson Valley

Dileon is so right: splash some paint on scrap wood. Do the definitive experiments.
Me? I am assembling a sack of scrap wood (western red cedar) to recreate all of my color charts
from watercolor painting to wood carvings. Quite an exciting prospect to see what happens on wood.

You just put an idea in my head...
I'm leaning towards painting, as in on canvas. Just for paintings sake.
But it will no doubt be part of my total creative process. I think having scraps with the colors, (and some notes), is a great idea...!!
One of these days I plan to, (and I have some crazy ideas), use all of my disciplines...Inlay, carving, painting, and wood-burning all together in one project.
I will definitely be keeping some scraps with color studies close at hand..
Thanks Rob...

[Robson Valley]

My plan is to do the paint on western red cedar and stick everything on a sheet of foam core with a glue gun, I have w/c color charts on Arches but they're useless for this.,
I have little choice but to begin a "finishing marathon." The color charts (acrylics on WRC) have to come first. Likely tomorrow!!!
WRC is a lot of browns. Blue washes = will I see grays? Tomorrow.

[JimSawyer]

Robson,
Fill us in with what you find..