Tips and trix
Transferring designs to your wood piece
  • The first step is to obtain a good transparent tracing paper. Beware of the ones that are milky white: details are often difficult to see through them. My preference is to buy the rolls and cut the paper to size. This way, it avoids having to tape two or three sheets of tracing paper together to get a full design.
  • If the tracing paper is cut to the exact size of the painting surface, when the design is transferred, it can be centered on the tracing paper at this point. Then, whenever the tracing has to be brought back to the piece for further transfer of details, it is easily placed.
  • When the pattern is traced from the original design, use a permanent marker with a very fine tip. Contrary to pencils or pens, the marker dries instantaneously and will not dirty the paper when your hand travels back and forth over the sheet while tracing. Also, the tracings will remain clean and clear to re-use another time.
  • When tracing with the marker onto the tracing paper, trace just slightly inside the line. When the design is then transferred to the piece to be painted, the same method is repeated. This will ensure that the design will not have been deformed in the transfers. When the design is then base-coated, the paint can cover the graphite lines returning the design to its original form and saving the time of having to erase the graphite lines left on the piece.
  • When graphite transfer paper is new, the side that has the graphite on it should be wiped down with a piece of paper towel. This is to ensure that the transfer lines are clean and without excess marks on your wood piece. Remember the older the paper, the better the transfer.
  • For transferring finer details, such as facial features and small detail, be careful about the tracing and transferring of the designs. A tiny nose on a face can become a big nose after two transfers and a base coat.
  • If there are any excess graphite lines left, they can be erased with a white eraser or a kneadable art eraser without damaging the painted surface. 
 
Basecoating…most often asked questions.
  • Which brush shall I use? Always use the biggest brush possible for the area to be covered. For example, if there is an area of about 2 square inches to cover, then a ½’’ flat should be used. The surface to be covered is not always perfectly square, therefore fitting the brush into a corner or an irregular shaped area may have to be considered. This is where stroke work comes in. Use the brush to its’ greatest potential: flatten it out to cover a great area or turn it to the chisel edge to fill in a corner or a triangular space.
  • What is the consistency of the paint to use? The paint should always be of a flowing consistency. Because of the different consistencies between paint companies and different paint colors, it is impossible to have a solid guide to the amount of water or flow medium that has to be added to a specific quantity of paint. Therefore, here are a few tips to getting the right consistency. If the paint out of the bottle balloons onto the palette (like the consistency of honey or molasses), it is too thick. Water or a flow medium such as Jo Sonja’s flow medium should be added drop by drop until the proper consistency is attained. Flow medium, contrary to water, will dilute the paint without diluting the color. If the paint just out of the bottle flattens out quite thinly, do not dilute it.
  • How do I base coat? Pre-dampen the brush and tap out the excess water. Load the brush by pulling the paint out of the puddle from the sides and flattening the brush. Load both sides of the brush until the hairs of the brush are loaded to ¾ of the way up. If ridges are apparent along the sides of the strokes, this means that there is too much paint loaded in the brush. Flatten out the brush and stroke it on a piece of dry palette to take excess off. If the stroke ends with little or no paint, then the brush is either not loaded enough or the paint is too thick and cannot extend itself. Remember that it is better to basecoat with many thin coats, rather than one thick, bumpy coat.
  • Are there any secrets to quicker base coats? Some colors are extremely frustrating to base coat because they are very transparent. Usually, bright reds, some burgundy’s and most bright yellows and oranges require a lot of patience when base coating. They go on unevenly and sometimes take up to 7 coats of paint before reaching opacity. This is the worst case scenario, but often can be alleviated by a simple pre-basecoat step. If the background is dark, then a coat of any off-white or light gray color should be painted in before continuing. Instead of 5 or 6 coats of red, only need 2 or 3 may be needed. The color will be brighter and truer because of the lighter background.

    Another trick to save time on basecoating is painting in the different sections with slightly different colors. This technique is used especially where there are a lot of separations in a one color zone. Using the example of a flower such as a tulip, it is usually based with all one color and then the details and separations of the petals are re-transferred with the graphite paper and stylus. To omit this step, all the details of the petals are transferred before the base coats are done. Then, each section (or petal, in this case) will be painted with a different color. One petal will be painted with the base color plus a tiny bit of a lighter color. The next petal over, may be based with the pure base color. For the next petal over, if a third color is needed to differentiate, then a little bit of a darker color may be added to the base coat. The important thing to remember is that the difference in colors of each petal should only be perceptible to the eye in a small way. Once the shading and the highlighting is done on each of the petals, the difference in the base coats should not be highly apparent, but will most probably enhance the natural look of the flower.