[Colin_Partridge]

Hi Gang,
As you know I am doing a three foot santa as we speak. Ash on another thread asked me "where is the Santa". He is absolutly right I can carve them really quickly but painting them is another ball game. My hat if off to those of you that paint your carvings. The large Santa is going to be wearing a crazy quilt. My wife is an avid quilter and has spoken for this carving. She also has me doing a nine patch quilt on this Santa to match her living room. Now I have about 1 1/2 hours into that Santa that is carving and sanding. Today I started to lay out the pattern for the quilt. Well 2 hours later I just have all the patches (fat quarters) for you ladies laid onto the carving. Not an easy task because the santa isnt even all the way up. Tomorrow I will lay out each 9 patch there must be 50 of them. The quilted Santa I did out of Goody's blank probably took me five or six hours to paint and it was quite simple. So I have a deep respect now for those of you that paint your carvings it must take you hours for some of those involved pieces. Maybe I need some new brushes or I dont have the right ones but painting these things is really hard. Is it me or are some of you the same and have a hard job with the painting.
Now if I could just figure out how to work this air brush my kids gave me for Christmas ten years ago that is still in the box unopened it scares the be geebies out of me.
Colin

[jillsy]

Colin, you're certainly not alone. I love to paint, but sometimes it takes longer to paint a piece than carve it. Just like carving, ya gotta get the right tools for the job. Don't even bother with cheap brushes, get decent ones and you'll wind up a much happier person!

As for airbrushing, I've had one for about 15 years and all it does it collect dust. I hear once you get the hang of them, you'd never go back to painting with a brush, but I didn't like it.

Jillsy

[Skulli]

Brushes are VERY important in achieving a good paint job. Having come off a 20+ year semi-career of painting lead miniatures, I learned the hard way about making sure to buy good quality brushes.
Windsor & Newton has some nice ones, although pricy. I prefer a company called Reaper, who specializes not only in fantasy minis, but a nice line of acrylic paints and brushes as well.

The standard Reaper brush is fine, but if you can swing it, their Irish made Kolinsky series is incredible to work with. You'd be surprised at your seemingly sudden increase in skill level of painting, simply by using a quality brush!

And most important is that you take good care of them...clean down into the ferrule with a nice brush soap (or shampoo!), shape the tips and NEVER store them flat...always brush end up in a jar or whatever. Hope this helps.

Pleasant carving!
Jim

[Marci MN]

Yes.. sometimes painting them take much longer than carving them. So far I've done 35 santas since starting last year at this time.

I did find a handy thing to help with quilt squares.. its the blue painters tape. Just lining that up on the 'stitch line' helps keep the paint in place. I've also woodburned in the squares and that keeps the paint in its place.

And since yours is larger.. you could stencil in the pattern for your different material patterns. Like stars or dots or squiggles..(cut your own out of plastic sheeting). Stencils cut down the time and mistakes on making them all alike.

Just a few tips to help you out.

[Ashbys]

Colin ,

You need to go to the ashbys school of painting .....

step one ... go to Goodys ....

Step two ...carve blank....

step three ... go to Goodys ...

step four ... drop on the floor crying , and beg Anna !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[AlArchie]

Colin, this probably won't be practical on some of your larger carvings, but for working smaller details into a carving you want to paint, try using Lynn's tip on woodburning the outlines between defined areas. This is the same tactic I use on relief carvings that will be painted. The burned line creates a barrier to the paint bleeding between areas. This allows you to use thin washes, so you still see some of the wood grain. Thicker paints may just glomp (technical term) over the lines, but the washes go up to them and STOP. It's a good technique. This also works very well with water colors. It may not be effective if you use thinned enamels or lacquers.

Al

[Lynn O. Doughty]

Right On! with using the burning tool to help in painting. Just like a watercolorist uses masks to block out areas of the paper, this does the same thing on wood.

Another tip that helps is to think of your brush, assuming that you went out and bought one of high quality, as a pen. When writing a letter you don't want to run out of ink halfway through. The same goes for brushes. If you're using acrylics or watercolors pre-wet your brush in water, squeeze the water out then fully load it with the color. You'd be surprised to see how much paint a brush can hold. As you drag the tip across the area your painting the paint farther back is drawn forward just like a pen. Works every time!

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Al? Glomp? is that before or after blub?

[Colin_Partridge]

Thank you all so much for the advice. I will begin painting this afternoon and will burn in the quilt squares first and then do the color. I did go out and buy some good quality paint brushes (Now they told me they were good quality). I spent over $100 for 8 brushes so I sure hope so. I will let you all know how it turns out it will take me months to paint this Santa just because of the size of him. The only advice I have recieved here that is not practical is Ash's advice its too long a drive although I will be making it one day. Now we know why Ash's painting of carvings is so good, Anna you do a wonderful job.
Colin

[AlArchie]

Dave, GLOMP is actually a technical achronym.

G; oo. Goo
L; eeaking Leaking
O; over Over
M; y My
P; ainting Painting

I dunno why I gotta keep telling youse guys dis stuff!


Al