Watercolour + V-Carving

This is my first posting here at LJ, so I hope I’m doing this right…

The main thing that I’ve been doing with wood (lately) has been a hybrid of wood carving and watercolour painting.

I start out by covering the piece of (otherwise scrap) wood with something to seal it – I use whatever random bits I have left in a rattlecan. This both seals the wood, so that I don’t get watercolour all over the top part later, and lets me focus on the design rather than the grain of the wood. I like them to work together, but not too much.

Carve out the pattern. I do this with CNC – I have a mill and a sheet router. Depends on what I’m doing, which I will use. The last pic is an example of what it looks like when I’m doing that. People who come into the shop assume I’m intending on keeping the top coat of paint and usually remark things to me along the lines of “You just spray painted oak?!!”

Then I blow everything out to make sure there’s no dust and hit it with my watercolours. I mix the colour with gum arabic, which helps the spreading of pigment and ensures it doesn’t go laterally. I then let it get super dry – usually overnight. It will be dry to the touch within 10 minutes, but I’ve learned that if I generate fine sawdust right after that it mucks up the paint pretty good.

Depending on the wood, the pattern, my mood, etc., sometimes I have the v-carve go 1/32” deeper than I really want so it’s easy to push through the planer and get rid of that rattle-coat. Other times the wood isn’t suited for that (I use a lot of salvaged wood with natural edges, so I will try to keep certain features intact) so I cut it closer to actual depth, or straight up actual depth, and then sand it by hand or with a bench sander. (usually both)

Then everything gets sealed – I use a satin poly for the first couple of coats so that it doesn’t alter the colour too much (watercolour is very susceptible to colour change). Then it gets a glossy, semi-gloss or satin finish coat depending on the piece.

I use a simple keyhole router bit on the back so that it hangs flush with the wall.

The designs are a mixed bag – some are open-source images I’ve found online, some I’ve made myself, some are a combination thereof.

-- Lis - Michigan - http://www.missmooseart.com - https://www.etsy.com/people/lisbokt