Why base coat? Base coating is the essential part of your project especially when using the dry brush technique on your styrofoam and wood products. Most acrylic paints are opaque especially the Ceramcoat products. Even though the FolkArt paints have a more denser consistency they will still take on the hue of the base coat.
When painting your styro that represents stone, cement, wood or other natural objects you want to give your project a realistic look. So lets pick a material like wood bark on a tree. When you look at the bark you will naturally see the various colors like light brown, dark brown, rust, dark green, grey and your last color will be black. If you look at the bark up close you will see these colors not only on the surface, but also in the cracks of the wood. Because the human eye can only focus in so much that the further away from the bark the darker those cracks in the bark are going to get and eventually the human eye will only identify the colors as black. So this is why it is essential to use a dark base coat to represent the natural and realistic look of your material.
This being said, rule of thumb when dry brushing is going from dark to light. Although this rule can be broken when doing an antique look by reversing the process. Dry brushing is basically a technique used by ceramic painters and crafters. You apply your base coat usually a black or dark brown. Next you will load your brush up with a lighter color then you will wipe it of a little on a paper towel. Lightly brush over the surface of your project until you have a thin layer with a little bit of your base coat showing through. Repeat this process with the rest of your colors progressively going lighter.
There are two base coats that i use all the time for my projects. Black for Halloween and Burnt Umber for Christmas.
To get an idea how your colors will look against a base coat apply a small sample of white and a small sample of black on a scrap piece of styro. Next dry brush Christmas red or red on both samples. You will see that the red will have a bright vibrant effect on the white sample while the red on the black will have a darker and richer hue.
Why base coat when you are going to cover your work with all those colors? When you apply a coat of mat or satin varnish to your paint you will bring out all those colors including the base coat which will give your project depth. Experiment with your colors with a base coat and see what best fits your project.
Here are my basic colors when i dry brush my project especially when i am doing cement and cobblestone carvings on my styro.
For Halloween: base coat Black, dry brush: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Honeycomb or Country Twill or any beige color for accent. Last apply a varnish.
For Christmas omit the black base coat and replace with Raw Umber.
For a cement look base coat Black then dry brush Burnt Umber and then Med. Grey or Dolphin Grey.
When painting your styro that represents stone, cement, wood or other natural objects you want to give your project a realistic look. So lets pick a material like wood bark on a tree. When you look at the bark you will naturally see the various colors like light brown, dark brown, rust, dark green, grey and your last color will be black. If you look at the bark up close you will see these colors not only on the surface, but also in the cracks of the wood. Because the human eye can only focus in so much that the further away from the bark the darker those cracks in the bark are going to get and eventually the human eye will only identify the colors as black. So this is why it is essential to use a dark base coat to represent the natural and realistic look of your material.
This being said, rule of thumb when dry brushing is going from dark to light. Although this rule can be broken when doing an antique look by reversing the process. Dry brushing is basically a technique used by ceramic painters and crafters. You apply your base coat usually a black or dark brown. Next you will load your brush up with a lighter color then you will wipe it of a little on a paper towel. Lightly brush over the surface of your project until you have a thin layer with a little bit of your base coat showing through. Repeat this process with the rest of your colors progressively going lighter.
There are two base coats that i use all the time for my projects. Black for Halloween and Burnt Umber for Christmas.
To get an idea how your colors will look against a base coat apply a small sample of white and a small sample of black on a scrap piece of styro. Next dry brush Christmas red or red on both samples. You will see that the red will have a bright vibrant effect on the white sample while the red on the black will have a darker and richer hue.
Why base coat when you are going to cover your work with all those colors? When you apply a coat of mat or satin varnish to your paint you will bring out all those colors including the base coat which will give your project depth. Experiment with your colors with a base coat and see what best fits your project.
Here are my basic colors when i dry brush my project especially when i am doing cement and cobblestone carvings on my styro.
For Halloween: base coat Black, dry brush: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Honeycomb or Country Twill or any beige color for accent. Last apply a varnish.
For Christmas omit the black base coat and replace with Raw Umber.
For a cement look base coat Black then dry brush Burnt Umber and then Med. Grey or Dolphin Grey.
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