In order to learn how to paint on wood, it is not enough to read how it is done and look at the work of an experienced artist. Craftsmanship can only come with experience, and therefore you need to try to paint a wooden thing yourself.
Before starting painting, the surface of the wood must be prepared. The product is cleaned with a damp cloth or medium-hard brush, sanded with fine sandpaper and primed. Any type of sandpaper can only be used to sand wood along the grain. You can use a putty, to which tint color and fine sawdust or sand are sometimes added for texture. A protective coating is applied to the prepared surface. These include stains, colorless or of various shades. There are also water-based, alcohol-based and oil-based stains.
The surface must be dried before the main drawing. This process usually does not take more than a day. If the drying of the soil and protective coating is delayed and after a day the surface of the product remains sticky, this is most likely the result of non-observance of some instructions. All compositions are applied to the surface with a thin layer, with the exception of papier-mâché elements. Thicker layers dry unevenly, take a long time, and may crack as a result.
Painting can be done with a variety of paints, professionals recommend tempera, acrylic and oil. There are no contraindications to the use of gouache or watercolors, but gouache tends to blur and smear when the finished product is varnished, and without varnish it is afraid of moisture. Watercolors are also afraid of moisture and blurry, moreover, it is a transparent paint. If the background texture should not show through the paint layer, you will have to lay the watercolor in several thick layers.
Any drawing can be used, both familiar to many folk painting techniques, and independently developed. The plot can also be anything - a geometric ornament, an image of animals, plants and their parts, a landscape, a still life, a portrait. For the first experience, it is best to choose what seems the least difficult, so that there is less chance of failure. The least difficult is not always the most primitive image, you should rely on your inclinations and practice with various forms on paper, finding out which subjects you like the most and work out best.
After the product is painted and the paint has dried, it is best to varnish the wood. Even paints that do not suffer from contact with water need this, since contact of the paint with the surface often disappears over time, and the paint can peel off. For the first layer, it is recommended to use nitro varnish, as it fixes paints on the tree very well. It is good to cover the second and third layers with oil varnish, colorless or tinted, remembering that this coating is easily scratched and therefore it is better not to use it for everyday things. Each next layer is applied only when the previous one is completely dry.
