You can add color and paint to your chip carving projects to create a vintage look to your wood carving. This is especially effective for chip carving projects that developed minor flaws as chip outs, double cuts, and wobbly lines. Begin by painting a primer coat of acrylic craft paint to your entire project. Here I am using a loose mix of ochre, mustard, and white to give my primer coat variations in tones.
Chip Carving E-Project at ArtDesignsStudio.com
FREE CHIP CARVING WOOD PROJECTS
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Chip Carving Seminar
Chip Carving Supplies
Chip Carving Graphed Patterns
Chip Carving Hand Positions and Grips
Chip Carving – Cutting Triangle and Square Chips
Chip Carving – Cutting Straight-Wall, Curve-Wall, Free Forms
Chip Carved Chess and Game Board
Chip Carving – Sampler Layout Pattern
Chip Carving Common Mistakes
Chip Carving Shortbread Cookies
Individual motif areas of your chip carving can be painted in complementary colors to emphasis the change in the chip shapes, depth, and design. Again, note that since we want a vintage look I am not working towards a solid, opaque coloring anywhere on the chip carving plaque.
Allow the base acrylic color to dry thoroughly. You can at this point give your plaque several very light coats of spray sealer, which limits how much of the oil stain can grab into the wood. For my project I applied one coat of burnt umber oil paint mixed half and half with boiled linseed oil.
With a clean cloth, wipe off the oil stain working with the grain direction of your wood. You can dampen your cloth with turpentine to remove any excessively dark stain on the high areas of the chip carving.
Let your stain coat dry completely. This can take several days depending on how thick the oil is in the deep chip cuts. Using 220-grit sandpaper lightly begin to sand your chip carving. The sandpaper will clean the high ridges between the chip cuts and distress the large, un-carved areas, creating a wonderful vintage look.
Clean the sanding dust with a tach cloth and apply your favorite finish.
This little chip carved fish decoy is found in our
Whittle Fish Decoy Carving E-Project, and in
Finishing Techniques for Wood Crafters.