Never in a 1000 years did I think after cutting, sanding, glueing and nailing my sculptures together I would be painting each little piece of wood....twice! Undercoat and topcoat. I haven't got room to store them inside so the wood is weathering which looks good on some but dowdy on others. I hope I am doing the right thing!!
As usual I have my next big project on my mind but I must finish present projects or it will all get out of hand. Oh to have lotsa little assistants.
7 comments:
I'm not sure what you are trying to make, they don't look very useful to me and I like useful things.
But having said that I'm wondering why if you painted them first they are weathering.
Well, maybe you have shit for paint over there, I don't know. But I'll tell you this being as I have a fair amount of experience painting homes.
Use an oil base undercoat and a latex base topcoat. Not that it's really latex anymore but is still called that.
If you can't get an oil base primer over there use a latex primer but thin it with 25 to 50 percent lacquer thinner.
Sure they'll mix, it just takes some work is all. The thing is you see. Latex paints do not soak into the wood but just lay on the surface, like billions of leaches with suckers as the molecules go.
Thinning the latex primer with lacquer thinner pulls those little bastards into the wood so that everything bonds better.
I can see where they had to be painted as you made it. Well, no I fucking can't. Here is how to paint something like that if you don't use spray equipment.
Put a gallon of paint in a one gallon jug like a plastic milk jug, if you have them there. Drill about a 1/4 inch hole in the lid.
Put the sculpture over an old bathtub or something like that that has a drain in it that you can put a can under to retrieve the runoff in.
Pour the paint over the sculpture, what runs off into the tub squeegee toward the drain. Use a spray bottle with water in it to get the tub cleaner, a little more water in latex paint isn't going to hurt a bit.
Not that I know about the paints over there, but it's how I would do it here.
BTW, if you want to make great cheap waterproof glue take a few ounces of gas (or lacquer thinner or acetone if you want it to cure faster) and melt a bunch of that white styrofoam that pervades the planet until you have just ball of the best glue you can make, and for just very little cost.
Don't make a lot at a time, it doesn't store well, but many expensive store bought glues don't either.
Just make what you need at the time. Try it, glue two pieces of wood together and let it cure for 24 hours and then toss it in a pale of water for a year.
And after a year try to pry the two pieces apart, good luck, it's still as strong as the day you tossed it into the water.
painting your sculptures ..l wonder where you got that idea !!!! l wish l was there to help l really do Bx
Wow Billy I wish I had your advice before I started. I'm sure we have the same kinda paint you have in America, just because we live at the end of the earth doesn't mean we are not up with the play. For some of the sculptures I used CD50 which soaks into the wood and protects and preserves but weathers quickly which I don't mind but not good for selling new. Others I used expensive teak deck varnish (Sikkens) but they eventually weathered too so I thought I would use paint to protect from UV. I could spray on the undercoat but being perverse I want to paint each piece of wood a different colour so can't do the topcoat.
Thanks for the advice.
Billie....I think even you would get sick of it! It's taken two full days to do one sculpture. Looks good though.
Love
I like to do things like this.
SPIRITS PROJECTS
I've done posts about painting before but the damn search feature on blogger isn't working, at least on my computer, or I would provide you with some links to them.
But if I get time I will do a post for you showing you another cool way to paint things much faster than using a brush, and much neater also.
Hey Billy, thanks for your interest. I enjoy being practical too. I don't know that all art is useless. Is music so? Or film? I notice you post photography isn't that an art and useful? Da Vincis' drawings showed a flying machine. Anyway my art is useful to me, it gives me a chance to express myself in a different way.
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