Hi and welcome to my blog. I hope you like my new look, I needed a change from black. Here you can share my miniature endeavours, perhaps be inspired by some of my photographs taken in France and of 'real world' treasures that can be made in miniature. My love of parterre-style gardens and study of horticulture made my decision for the theme of my little shop an easy one. I just hope I can successfully interpret my ideas in 1/12th scale!

Sunday, February 28, 2010

To Paint or Not to Paint?

Recovering from a couple of days of heavy smoke as bushfires came a bit too close for comfort. We live on the edge of a small suburb north of Sydney, next to the bush which is lovely to look out at and to hear all the birds, but can be a worry in the dry weather.

Just thinking about my little shop and my last painting experiences. I decided to paint the exterior with a sandstone effect as the shop was fully constructed and I couldn't think of any other way to give it a satisfactory finish. I know some miniaturists don't believe in painted effects, they will only use real miniature weatherboards, bricks etc. Being fairly new to miniatures, I don't know what the guidelines are, but I know of quite a few miniaturists who use various means to achieve the look they want.

I'd love to hear some comments on this. I've added a photo of my painting process, in addition to my various painted finishes I have done before finally settling on the sandstone finish. I achieved the effect by cutting thin strips of masking tape and creating a grid, measuring up the area to be painted to get a fairly balanced look. It was quite time-consuming. I know it's possible to buy stencils with the various types of faux brick finishes but I thought that might be more difficult to get right. The background colour, which becomes the mortar, is quite important and needs to match the final colour nicely. The finished surface has some texture to it as there were a few layers of paint before I achieved the colour and look I wanted.

While researching sandstone finishes on old buildings I thought of my paternal grandfather, whom I never met. He was a stonemason and I wondered what he would think of my project and what comments he might make.

The thin strips of masking tape were laid out horizontally first, then the vertical strips were applied individually.

2 comments:

  1. You've done lot of masking :) I have the exact problem, I don't know what to do with my Bakkerys exterior. Your stone effect looks so nice, that I might try to do similar work.

    Ira

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  2. There are many schools of thought about materials. I think there are many times when the "real thing" doesn't work. It is out of scale. Imagine using real marble when you have the option of creating faux marble out of polymer clay. The clay option would be my choice because you could achieve the effect in scale.

    I think your shop is wonderful. The sand stone is very believable in the pictures. I really love everything about it. Well done!

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