TRICKS & TIPS No.7

Sometimes you may end up with a finish to a project that at first glance may mean you can't finish it off in a smooth finish as planned, one that you intended to paint on some floral or fruit design in the case of a bowl for instance. Don't be too quick to scrap the project however as there is a quick & easy method to salvaging the project. It may not be the original finish you wanted but it can be enough to both save the project & still allow it to be sold too.

For instance here are two of my 'early' 1mm thick bowl experiments i came across yesterday I joined them together for this example. As you can see they are unfinished, rough (even though the picture shows them pretty smooth) unevenly finished. It does not show up in this picture very welll but there are even small gaps, some small hole like mistakes in the 'outter' white bowl surface. Even the top edge of the large white bowl has 'gaps' in the strip layers seen on the top right of the edge of the bowl. You will see it more clearly by clicking on the image to enlarge it.

Now as i said these were simply 'experimental' projects. I never intended to do anythng with them unless they came up perfect - Which these two didn't. Yet i CAN still save them & make them look like a pretty good finished project.

This is a very special paint from the brand of spray paint i prefer to use called Stone Touch. I don't know about other countries or stores but my local art supply store only carried this colour finish & a much lighter colour finish. This will serve both my eample here & to finish off the 'experimental' failure as a good finished project that i would (AM) very confident enough to sell later.

This paint requires no special pre-treatment of the surface area to be painted other than being dry & dust free as with any paints. It IS a little tricky to use & can be a little more expensive than normal spray paints. With normal spray paints be they high gloss, silk or matt you need to shake often & depress the nozzle hard & steady to get a nice even smooth finish. With this stone finish spray paint it IS quite the opposite.

With this paint you have to shake well but then only depress the nozzle 'gently' & stop pressing any further once the paint begins to spray out the nozzle. Also you need to spray in only 'small bursts' as you go. The stone finish paint because of the type of thick paint inside the tin has to come out at a higher pressure than standard smooth paint so that it fragments & creates the rough stone like finish. You will find when using this paint that as the paint sprays out it does so at increadable high pressure that can be overwhelming at first. You will quickly get used to this though.

The first thing you will notice is that if you use constant bursts the paint will both cover he project in a smooth'ish finish none stone like as it builds up really fast. Also because of the nature of this much thicker paint it remains 'wet' for quite some time where as standard spray paints will dry on the surface almost instantly to the touch. add to the fact the paint comes out thick & fast the high pressure at which it does so you will find if you don't use small gentle  bursts that the spray paint WILL blast any paint you have built up too quickly away leaving pock marks right down to the projects original surface.

You HAVE to spray gently & intermitantly, shake well as you go & try not to build up too thick a layer of paint as you go. Less IS more in this case.

As you can see here even those crude unfinished top edges have been covered nicely. The bowl is still wet here after having just been sprayed minutes before & will take a few hours to dry to be able to be touched gently, over night to be able to be handled properly.

If you don't want to spend anything from around £5.00 (UK Sterling) upwards for a tin of spray paint you don't feel confident in using there are two ther methods to creating a rough stone finish like i have shown here.

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Coat small sections at a time in PVA glue or any white glue such as Elmers etc or any contact or even wood glue you have or prefer to use. Now as  you glue add a thin sprinkle of either sand or small or fine wood chips like the type used in small animal cages. If you can't get very small or fine wood chips then simply purchase the smallest you can find & then run it rhough a blender briefly to break it down a little.

Once the whole surface is coated & fully dried either spray paint or brush paint on the fnal colour you want it to have. As a small bonus if you use the sand option this WILL add some weight to the finished project enhancing the illusion that you have an extremely thin stone bowl.

Remember my large ornimental dishes? I was going to paint these in a black & white (seperately) marble like finish. Time is as always not on my side for doing this though. Whilst unlike most of my other finished projects that my family tends to break, sometimes before i even get them finished these two semi-finished dishes have proven to be the toughest projects i have made to date along with my dragon vase WIPs & remain unbroken.

I do have plans to finish off my dragon vases with a super fine dragon skin bone mix (see previous posts on this subject) so they dry & 'crack' to make them look ancient. These large ornimental dishes however I am no longer going to paint i a marble finish. Instead i am simply going to coat them in the stone finish spray paint i showed you at the start of this post. One in the darker stone finish shown above & the other in the lighter shade i have.

Rather than simply do this then show you the finshed dishes which will be a short & rather boring post. I am going to show you not only HOW i made these large dishes but also two methods of creating vertually ANY sized dish & bowl as thin as 1mm thick. One of the methods i will show you WILL even allow you to make TWO IDENTICAL bowls or large dishes at THE SAME TIME!. Literally a few minutes extra in the time it would take you to make one dish or bowl you can make two!!.

I need to clear some projects i am working on right now as well as finish shooting & editing the Sharky competition launch video so give me a couple of days then i WILL get right on it for you.