Technique Tuesday #6 - Weathered Wood Crackle - DecoArt

#6

1. Coat the substrate with gesso to seal it and then apply a coat of tinting base and cobalt teal mixed together.

2. Apply a layer of candle wax and then paint a layer of tinting base mixed with cobalt teal and yellow green light, heat dry and rub with a piece of kitchen towel to expose some of the colour underneath.

3. Mix some quinacridone and paynes grey together to create a 'dirty wash' and paint it over the surface. You will see the wax repel it but take a heat gun and a piece of kitchen roll and dab and dry it at the same time to create these dirty speckles.

4. Apply a yer of weather wood crackle medium which will also be repelled by any wax residue, let it dry naturally or help it along with some gentle warmth from your heat gun held high and away from the surface. You'll see where it is from the shine left on the substrate.

5. Apply some more candle wax randomly over the surface - remember the places that you rub hardest will be the areas that should be exposed. Now apply a layer of titanium white. You'll almost immediately see some cracking appear from the weathered wood. Leave it to continue cracking naturally for a few minutes ......

6. .... then repeat the drying and rubbing process as in #2 above. I didn't get as much cracking as I wanted and I think there were two things that prevented this - one is I probably rubbed in too much candle wax and should have kept more of the area free from it and two, I overworked the titanium white when I painted it on - but practice makes perfect.

7. I finished by blending over some ground espresso distress ink and spritzed it with water ....

8. .... before dabbing and drying it at the same time to achieve a more grungier look.

But of course you could leave it nice and shabby clean looking as in step 6 if you wanted to and seal it with a coat of ultra matte varnish. To seal the grungier one use a spray dealer like the DecoArt Americana spray sealer.

Here's the graphic if you are pinning the series.

Products used are mostly from DecoArt - 

Tinting Base

Media Acrylics - Cobalt Teal, Yellow Green/Gold, Titanium white, Quinacridone Gold and Paynes Grey.

Weathered Wood Crackle Medium

These can be bought from Country View Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by today and for all the lovely comments you are leaving on the techniques each week.

See you again soon.

hugs Brenda xxx