Dry Brushing Acrylic Craft Paints
This free wood carving project is taught by Lora Irish, artist of Art Designs Studio. Drying brushing is the process of dragging a flat shader brush that is very lightly loaded with paint over a rough carved or highly detail carved surface, leaving a thin layer of coloring on the high areas of the work without covering the coloring that lays in the low troughs of the cuts. For this turtle we will use a multi-colored pale primer with darker dry brushed colors.
Supplies:
Ivory
King’s Gold – yellow gold
Honey Brown – golden brown
Wedgewood Green – medium grey green
Nutmeg Brown – medium-dark brown
carbon black
1/2″ flat shader
soft buffing cloth
2″ x 2″ x 1″ basswood block
Step 1: Using a bench knife carve the turtle shell shape from the basswood block. Use a large round gouge to cut the areas between the top shell and bottom shell for the legs and head. With a v-gouge or making stop cuts with your bench knife carve the sectional detail lines of the shell on both sides of the turtle.
Step 2: Pre-treat by buffing the entire carving with a soft cloth until it has a light sheen. Use your fingernails or a pointed brush handle wrapped in the cloth to get into the v-trough lines. Buffing lightly seals the wood, just as burnishing does.
Step 3: On your palette place a small puddle of ivory, golden yellow, and honey brown craft paint. Load your flat shader in the ivory then pick up some golden yellow on one side of the brush, pick up some honey brown on the other.
Use the triple loaded brush to give your turtle shell one base coat of color. As you work do not over brush this base coat – allow each of the colors on your brush to show. Re-dip the corner of your brush when you begin losing any of the three colors.
When the entire shell is base coated allow this carving to dry for 15 minutes or nuke it for 15 seconds.
SECRET – I’m sorry, I lost another photo here. However, after I had the base coat applied for this turtle shell I found several areas where the carving was very rough. I had a very nasty area where the two shell sections intersect and several corners in the shell v-gouge lines that still had wood splinters.
With multi-color base coats this situation becomes very easy to correct. Allow the base coat to dry thoroughly – 25 minutes. As the paint dries it will make those wood splinters stiff and hard. I next got out my bench knife and simply re-cut each of those areas.
Because the background color is not one color I easily picked up a little paint and touched those areas up … you can’t see now that I needed to re-carve anything. Using a base coat, primer coat, or multi-colored base allows you this second chance at having a great carving.
SECRET – You can burnish or polish your acrylic craft color primer coats to set the colors and bring them up to a soft sheen. Using a soft, clean, cotton cloth rub the painted surface with a medium amount of pressure. Continue rubbing until the entire surface develops a soft sheen. Polishing seals the painted surface allowing any new coats of color to be applied more smoothly.
Step 4: It is more common to work a dry brushing light over dark. If we were painting a wood spirit I would first base coat with honey gold, medium yellow, and maybe even a little Payne’s grey. After that dries I would antique the carving with a burnt umber or raw umber tone. This gives me a dark, multi-colored base. The dry brushing would be done using paler tones – sienna, tan, cream, and lots of white in the beard.
Turtle shells are backwards, they have a creamy yellow tone to the v-gouge shell section lines with color tones into the dark browns and blacks of the high area of each section.
So on your palette add a small puddle of wedgwood green, medium-dark brown, and black.
Lightly load your flat shader in wedgewood green. Move the brush onto a clean area of the palette and re-work the color into the brush bristles until it looks as if there is no color left. Place the shader flat to the high areas of the carving and drag the brush across the wood surface. This is leave just the high areas colored.
The photo is very accurate to the amount of color left in my brush when I go to the carving.
Let the Wedgewood green dry for a few minutes, just enough time for it to lose any shine. Follow with a dry brush coating of medium-dark brown, but do not cover all of the wedgwood green areas, The final color to be added is carbon black which should not cover up all of the other two colors.
You can continue adding layer upon layer of colors using dry brushing.
Step 5: Allow the painting to dry thoroughly and finish with two light coats of spray sealer. Cut, file, and glue in your legs and head. Using small (3mm) wood jasper beads add glued on eyes.
- Wood Carving and Burning Painting Supplies
- Paint Kit Supplies
- Steps to Success
- General Techniques used in Wood Carving Painting
- Burnishing your Wood Carving
- Simple Blending with Acrylic Craft Paints
- Acrylics over a Primer
- Simple Dry Brushing
- Dry Brushed Acrylics over Oil Based Stains
- Marbling and Splatter Painting
- China Painting with Acrylics
- Vintage Painting with Acrylics
Elk Wood Carving Patterns by Lora Irish, available at Art Designs Studio. Long lost from the East Coast of North America,today the Elk or Wapiti roam freely throughout the Mid-West, Western Mountains, and Canada.This package is stuffed with Elk Bulls with full racks.There is a sampling of American Indian artifacts used as a backdrop to the designs including a Birch Bark Canoe, Summer Teepee Camp, and Totem Poles. Great for Woodburning!
