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Posted by Mike Pulskamp (Member # 3475) on :
 
I am doing a sign framed in hand carved HDU faux granite. Has anybody got any pointers to share like what paints and techiniques they were most happy with?

Thanks
 
Posted by Dan Sawatzky (Member # 88) on :
 
When doing faux granite we paint a base coat... tnen sponge on some bacground mottling and paint some wiggly lines for cracks & seams and such.

After this we spray on dots in two or three colors with an inexpensive undercoat gun at low (10-15 lbs) pressure. The spraying goes instantly and be sure to practice on something other than your finish work.

Have fun with it!

-dan
 
Posted by Pat Phipps (Member # 3617) on :
 
Please post some pics when it't complete.
 
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
 
You can use water base or oil base paints, start with a black background and mix 3 or more shades of the colors you wish to use. It doesn't take a lot of paint, you will spread it out quite a bit. Use a cellulose sponge with a large hole pattern and pick out some extra holes in the face, and make sure you tear the edges ragged so there are no straight lines. A sea sponge will usually have the wrong pattern for this and costs a lot more money.
Wet the sponge in water no matter which kind of paint you will use - you want it soft. As you apply the paint colors by patting them on with the sponge keep turning the sponge so there are no repeat patterns. Hide the tool marks so normal people won't look at it and say to themselves "Oh, it looks like they just whacked this with a sponge!" If you work with wet on wet each color will pick up some of the others to blend them out some and create many more shades.You want this to look as though it contains millions of pebbles. If you want to use water base paints you can slow down the drying time with extenders - Floetrol is about the least expensive @$5.00 a quart.
Granite comes in an endless variety of colors, may have cracks or veins showing - or it may be very even.
Have Fun...
 
Posted by Nevman (Member # 332) on :
 
Mike and all...

You may want to pick up this book if you plan on doing more faux work.

 -

It's available on Amazon.com

Direct link

[ April 10, 2003, 01:40 PM: Message edited by: Nevman ]
 
Posted by Danny Busselle (Member # 3746) on :
 
Here's another Book Title "Professional Painted fINISHES" A Guide to the ART and Business of Decorative Painting. WATSON-GUPTILL PUBLICATIONS
WHITNET LIBRARY OF DESIGN 1515 Broadway, New York NY 10036 And "Te Finishing School Inc. 50 Carnation Ave,/Bldg 2 Floral Park NY 11001
Phone (516) 327-4850 Fax (516) 327-4853 that"s all you need now comes the footwork.
 
Posted by Mike Languein (Member # 319) on :
 
The Finkelstein @$45 is one of the best faux finish books around. That other one from The Finishing School is called "Professional Painted Finishes" by Ina, Allen and Robert Marx - also among the best, and they sell about the best teaching videos I've seen, the book is also a $45 item and the whole set of videos is about $300. Unfortunately, the specific products recommended in the videos are no longer manufactured. The Day Studios have excellent videos @ around $105 ea. and there is an excellent $75 faux finish book by Guégan & Le Puil, called "The Handbook of Painted Decoration".
Videos by Leonard Pardon are also very good at about $30 ea, but they only show one or a couple marbles or grains on each, where the others show 10 on each tape.
Amazon can beat those prices.
 


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