Stippled Paint Recipe

[Moglet]

Calling all HF bods! There's a frame I'm keen to work on tonight. I want to create a very lightly stippled finish on the rebate extension. Thing is, I've only got regular acrylic paints. Any advice on what I could use to thicken up the acrylic paint, please?

[gesso]

Hi can you post a pic of what your trying to achieve as the word 'stippled' can be a bit vague

[Moglet]

Hi Gesso, here's a pic - not great.

I want to emulate this look on the rebate extension: more "textured look" than "textured feel," if you know what I mean.

Stippled Effect 1.jpg

[gesso]

MMM thats a tough un' textured look comes automatic from a real texture. Dont know of any paint that will dry that way. its almost like lumpy paint but more uniform.......thinking ..... if you can find some textured wallpaper (better than woodchip). Paiste it onto your rebate then paint ontop.....

[Jonny2morsos]

Something to try (on a piece of scrap first, of course). Apply some paint and dry with a hot air paint stripping gun until the paint blisters and repeat until the required texture is achieved then add a final coat allowing to dry without heat.

John.

[prospero]

Typical. Been out all day so now it's too late to get to the shops, but.....

Black acrylic gesso might do the trick. You can stipple it for a textured finish but it's probably not thick enough to get that texture in the pic. What you need is some black powder paint mixed in (the stuff used in schools) to bulk it up a bit. Might take a bit of experimentation to get the right effect. A heat gun applied before the paint dries will make blisters that you can pop when dry to make a pitted surface. Tricky to get consistent though.
I would stipple it with a stiff brush and sand off any spikey bits when dry. Then paint with wax, wipe off excess and let dry. Sprinkle with rottenstone and give it a good buffing up. With luck it should look something like the pic.

Bit hard to judge the scale from the pic. It looks as though the coating has has some lumps mixed in. What you could use to simulate this I'm not sure. Rice maybe? Although I'm a bit reluctant to recomend anything organic.....

[Not your average framer]

Oh Dear! You can't keep anything secret can you.

Don't tell everyone, but this is how you make the lumps.



This machine is a hand powered grinder for grinding up gain to make flour, cracked grain, etc. You get them from places which supply self sufficiency stuff, etc. The black knob on the end sets to size you want to grind down to and after that all you need to do is wind the handle and put what you want to grind into the top. It's as easy as that and it will grind up old bits of gesso, bone china cups from the local charity shop, old terracotta flower pots, etc.

[Moglet]

Bit hard to judge the scale from the pic. It looks as though the coating has has some lumps mixed in.

Mea culpa. Should have mentioned that it's an enlarged image. Sozz!

Think I'll try the powder paint thickener/heat gun and the thickened paint/stippling brush combos and see which looks better. As it's a rebate extension, I don't need to be too 'precious' with the finish: I just don't want it to be "flat and featureless" as this would detract from the overall look of the job.

Mark - an object mincer!!! Your workshop must be a real Aladdin's cave!

Thanks to you all for advice and technique suggestions! Will let ye know how I get on.

[prospero]

Mark. Severely immpressed at the lengths you go to to achieve your ends. I don't go that far on my holidays.

Mog. This is stippled black gesso straight out the tub:

stipgesso.jpg

The panel is stippled. Outer parts just brushed. The lighting in the pic is a bit weird. It is black not browny.

[Moglet]

That'st the sort of effect I'm after. Although, I need the colour to be the dark brown side of black.

[prospero]

Mars Black artist's acrylic has a browny cast to it. Mixing in a touch of Burnt Umber will give it a more chocolaty look.
You can stipple it, but it hasn't as much 'body' as the gesso so the stipples will be finer. There are some heavy bodied versions of acyllic paint, but could be harder to find.

[JFeig]

That texture looks like lumpy oatmeal. What about using some rolled oats vs cut grain for the texture additive to acrylic gesso for a base.

[Moglet]

Mars Black artist's acrylic has a browny cast to it. Mixing in a touch of Burnt Umber will give it a more chocolaty look.

Was thinking of using a touch of burnt umber with 'regeler' black to mellow the blackness alright, but I'll see if the local art shop* has Mars Black tomorrow.




* Bit more of a small bookshop wot sells a fairly average selection of art materials on the side...

[Not your average framer]

Mark - an object mincer!!! Your workshop must be a real Aladdin's cave!

Hi Aine,

As you know I like to experiment. It's the ex-engineer you know!

You might also like to have a look at some of the goodies in the price list on the following link:

http://www.rose-of-jericho.demon.co.uk/main/_prices.htm

Have a look a the rest of their site too! It's worth checking out.

http://www.rose-of-jericho.demon.co.uk/

They've some nice stuff for doing textures and distressing promising items to add the appearance of a few more years, (but that's another story).

[Moglet]

Sheesh! You HF experts live in a whole 'nother world!

[Not your average framer]

Sheesh! You HF experts live in a whole 'nother world!

I think I need to debunk a few myths here. Firstly it's not such an expert thing as many may think. We live in an age where we all tend to think that things are far more complicated and difficult than they really are. These things are not that difficult and never were in the first place. I keep pushing hand finishing, because more framers should be learning how to do it and so that we don't lose some very precious skills and become just people who just join pieces of wood together.

My interest in hand finished framing mostly began when I went to a Spring Fair around about 1999-2000 and saw Pete Bingham demonstrating hand finishing. He makes it look easy and mostly of the techniques that he teaches really are as easy as they look. That's how I got into it and like everyone else, you find your own way of doing things as you go along. The thing which matters is having the confidence to give something a try and the more things which you try, then you find there's more things which you can do.

I learn a lot from asking questions, finding out how others do things, knowing which key words to enter into search engines, looking at suppliers web sites and experimenting. None of us are anything special, but some of us have already learnt things by starting something new and gaining experience as we go along. For those out there who are wishing that they could do hand finishing too, just try it, practice it and start learning. It's as simple as that!

You will need to ask questions and that's fine. There's plenty of forum members who will be willing to get involved in discussing and answering questions. It ain't rocket science. A lot of this stuff is using variations on traditional materials and methods proven over the years and still used, because it's the easiest, simplest and the best way of getting the right result. If anyone out there want to learn these skills, just try it and ask questions when you need to. You will all really love it when something you've done looks good and so will your customers.

Time to go for it!