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.