Pages

Friday 11 February 2011

Quick dry brushing tutorial.


.
Hi everyone. :)
.
How do you like this stone box i found? Just kidding, i am making something and needed to do a bit of dry brushing on it to get a slate effect, so i thought i'd take a few pics along the way to show you how easy it is.
.
Many of you will already know how to do this, and i'm sure you can do a better job as there are some most excellent tutorials out there. These are great for giving a stone effect to anything, especialy scenery or houses built for kids. No reason why you can't use it on cards though.
.
Firstly, i bought one of those cardboad boxes (are they cardboard? Papier mache maybe? i dunno).
.

.
Now we need to give it a base coat of black matt paint. I just used some old black acrylic paint, you can also get a really nice matt black spray base coat from places like Games Workshop or other scenery or modeling shops.
.

.
Now for the dry brushing. You'll need a stencilling brush. They come in many sizes, so depending on what size your project is depends on how big a brush you'll need.
.
Get yourself some tissue paper, and get a blob of white acrylic paint. Now dip your paint brush in the while, but just a tiny bit, you'll see why in a second...
.

.
Now you need to take all the paint off again. Sounds stupid i know, but you only want a hint of the white to dust over the contours of the black. So take the paint off by brusshing it clean over the tissue. Keep going until you think there is literaly nothing left on the brush.
.

.
It should be virtualy clean...
.

.
Now to dry brush. Holding the brush so it is upright and the flat bottom of the bristles are on the project, i just flick it around lightly over the black paint. Very lightly, you are after just hitting the raised surfaces of the black paint so you are only dusting the surface.
.

.
Eventualy you'll see a white powdery hint coming to the black paint which gives you a stone or slate effect. You'll know if you still have too much paint on your brush, it will leave whiter marks on your black surface. If you really mess it up, just recoat with black and start again.
.

.
Easiest technique ever. Like i say, this one was done really quick, so you can get a better effect if you take your time and really clean that brush off well. You can see a few places where i had too much paint on, it's too white.
.
This would be a great thing to do with your kids on a weekend, get one of those chipboard houses from any of the craft shops, and try some dry brushing. You can also add other colours to give different effects, on Rotty's house that i'm doing, i drybrushed with brown on top of this to give a tile effect.
.
A big thank you goes out to Maddy, as she showed me this technique many years ago.
.
Thanks for looking and i hope it comes in handy. :)

5 comments:

Sarah said...

I'd never heard of this technique, so thank you for sharing it with us. Love how it looks on that box. Very authentic looking

sandra said...

This is amazing!
I looove this technique,newer saw it before but I looove it!
Must try it myself!
Thanks for tutorial.
And let me say that I'm so jealous on you because you have Maddy to show you all amazing things!lol.
She rules!!!
You lucky....you!
Hugs!
Sandra!

maddy hill said...

wow Calv , think you have now mastered this ! looks just like slate ... fabulous !

now what are you going to put in it ?? chocolate prehaps ? hungry work dry brushing lol ...

awww and thanks Sandra xxxx but i do have a clever dick for a boyfriend too ... much too competent lately .... il have to move over soon ! hehee

tracy said...

wow calv, thats lovely, it looks like it has been sprinkled with icing sugar,
shame i parted with my stencilling brushes, wonders if a shaving brush would give the same effect.if i find something to try it out on,

maddy chocolates nah i think a nice bit of satin and some lovely item of jewellery to say thanks for your great teachings lol

Eiglas said...

Excellent project Calv! Love Rotty's new house too - very plush!
You do know that Calvin Mouse is now going to give Maddy a hard time until he has one better, don't ya? LOL!
Hugs
Ei
x