This wonderful idea is not mine … it comes from TurtleSoupBeads YouTube Channel for polymer clay bead creations.  In fact from her video:

Creating Mini Doughnut Beads with Polymer Clay

What I have done is applied her great technique to our wood carving, wood burning, and gourd art paintings.  Its so simple, but extremely effective.  The smaller background fish has just the acrylic paints and the overlay larger fish has been enhanced with eye shadow make up.

After you have finished painting your wood project using acrylics or oil paints but before you have applied any finish or sealer, grab up some of your old eye  shadow make up. You will also want several small clean, filbert-type brushes.

Pick up a little eye shadow color on your brush and gently rub the brush over the area that you want to shade or intensify the color.  You can apply several coats and you can apply one color over another to create added  color interest.

For my fish decoy I started with a dark purple eye shadow in the deep joint line between the fish’s body and his top fin.  Dark blue eye shadow added depth to the v-gouge line that runs through the center of his body, and bright green was added under his eye to enhance that sparkle.

Deep purple and teal were worked along the joints of the fins with the body and along the bottom edge of his belly.

Because eye shadow is a powder it is easily blended with just a brush, adding gentle graduations of color.  While I probably won’t paint an entire wood project just with eye shadows, they are perfect for brightening and strengthening your shadows and highlights without any brush strokes.

After you are done simple proceed onto your sealer and finishing steps!!!!

Thank you TurtleSoupBeads !!!!