Rusty Davis
Shohin
I kind of feel like I need to put a clear coat on to get a longer life out of them. Some clear coats have the glossy to no gloss look.
Cement/Concrete/Grout Containers
- Thread starter ghues
- Start date
SU2
Omono
That finish just came out so damn good!! Have you done a lot of paint work like that before? I mean, I can see how it's just a couple/few colors to achieve that effect it's just that if I tried to do that, to make it look 'natural', that it'd just never come out looking natural, there'd be too much symmetry or crappy color placement... Am certainly eager to see how grayscales come out, am expecting that that's where the best ones will be, effectively making them look like stone - once you're able to marble (or streak, or chunk- depending what type of rock-type you're trying to imitate, wish I could recall the url that goes over rock types and their essential aesthetics/shaping) with the grays it'll just be a matter of getting the concrete-finishing to be more in-line w/ stone and you'd be making incredibly convincing faux-stone containers (hell you'd probably be able to market them
)
SU2
Omono
I dunno, I mean aging could be beneficial (aesthetically), it could further 'naturalize' the paint and be the type of thing that looks better at 1yr than 1 day post-paint! And clear-coats definitely come in every sheen from flat to high-gloss
I've been experimenting w/ crayons lol, I know it sounds silly but the way it goes on is kind of neat and you can 'fade' colors into each other, I also kind of think there may be something beneficial about having a sealed (colored wax) outside and non-sealed inside, since cement will hold moisture, so having unsealed/sealed interior/exterior essentially makes the walls of the pot a water-holding/buffering zone instead of inert! Still just messing around w/ color combos and application methods (wire brush, sandpaper, etc, stuff goes on easy if you leave the container&crayons in the sun ;p ) but still nothing worthy of photographing :/
Rusty Davis
Shohin
Here are the grey ones and a couple with some color for fun. Also two brown ones from the first go. This was my first time dry brushing but my dad is a painter so I had good instructions
SU2
Omono
Damn those gray ones (first 2 upper-left) look great!
What is 'dry brushing'?
I love the look of those gray ones that's very similar to the tone I want for a lot of mine, honestly it's such a gray-scale manipulation from my regular/raw coloration that I'm thinking some black (and maybe a little blue) oxide/pigment/additive to my mix may be smarter than post-cured paint/stain/etc.....especially since you could do not-fully-mixed colors, I wish I had pictures but I've had multiple colors of 'Sakrete' brand cement-coloring powder and made muds of different colors and kind of half-mix the two mortars (pre-wetted to ready-to-use slouch) so the colors would marble, if you had two similar shades of dark gray and did that kind of marbling it'd probably come out real well....need to get a bag of black pigment and experiment with that!!
Am certainly going to be doing a lot of playing around with colors (do you recall the sheen of your brown ones? They look satin or even semi-gloss, I know there's glossier pots out there but I'm not a fan of shiny pots...), I want to be able to make some really purdy pots for some specific trees (and want the ability in general!) but in the past days of playing with coloring on scrap-pieces I've been thinking more & more that a part of me prefers unfinished containers, it's not just that I love concrete in general but think there's something about homogeneity amongst the containers, since really thinking about colors/sheens/finishes I keep looking at my garden as a whole (my backyard is ringed w/ a 'fence' of bonsai benches, all the same color, literally just 3 long rows of benches make up the 'fence' perimeter of my backyard) and keep picturing containers in a variety of colors versus all 1 color....am torn. Have certainly been focusing my finishes-practicing towards earth-tones only!
Rusty Davis
Shohin
Dry brushing is using a very small amount of paint and very lightly going across the surface. I painted the whole thing black the use the darkest color then the next lightest and so on. Each layer of paint your doing less. I didn't really let it dry between colors
sparklemotion
Shohin
These look great! How are you managing drainage/tie down holes in these?
SU2
Omono
Sorry but I just want to be clear on this because it sounds awesome and I've gotta try it lol, if I'm understanding you correctly you're doing a normal & full coating of black paint first as a base, and then are dry-brushing (starting w/ the darkest and working toward lighter) on the actual color of the container, *not* fully covering it but just 'patchy'/feathered strokes, til there's really no black and just the multitude of grays atop it? Sounds like a really kick-ass way of approaching the multiple color-density (of the same color) effect I wanted I can't wait to try this!
SU2
Omono
The pic on page 2 w/ a drainage hole looks clean so am guessing it's a plug of some sort (am thinking that you wouldn't want to be drilling-through a piece like this that's using aluminum window-screening as structure, at least not w/ a drill as slow as mine is lol YMMV!)
sparklemotion
Shohin
Search YouTube for dry brushing vids. It's a standard technique in the wargaming miniature/modeling/terrain/train worlds.
I haven't done it at this large of a scale, but for minis, the trick is to have as little paint on the brush as possible...dip brush, wipe off on paper towel, brush back of hand a little, then apply.
SU2
Omono
Thank you so much sparklemotion!! That's a technique I've always wanted to learn but never did, this is the perfect time/circumstance to do so! Not to sound like a brag but I'm great w/ painting "in general", like I worship my Purdy brush, I don't use painter's tape or drop-cloths when painting because I very rarely err, can paint edges w/ precision incredibly fast, and am great at 'feathering'/blending (ie when you're applying paint that's very very close to what's already down, but not a perfect match, and have to 'spread' it so it fades-into what's already down, I'm very good at that!)
What size/type brush were you using for the containers you pictured up-thread? I'm thinking of trying 1" 'throwaway'-type brushes for larger areas and 1-4mm brushes (artists' brushes) for small accents (have also been thinking that using the wire-brush (or wire-wheel on the drill/grinder!) may make for some cool texture before painting!)
Rusty Davis
Shohin
Sorry I've been out of the country for work. I picked up a cheep brush from the craft store it was around 3/4" just use a very small amount of paint. Take your time and build up
SU2
Omono
NP, I literally just got back to this thread today myself ;p
Thanks again for all the back&forth here, I'm not really liking how paint goes on *at all*, looks fake/plastic/manufactured and I like the hand-made look, however paint with water ('stain'?) has been working fantastic for me, am using similar procedures as you'd mentioned I mean it's not 'dry brushing' but the layering, darker before lighter colors etc has helped a lot in the results I'm getting, am close to comfortable-enough to actually do a real pot (I've got ~20 mortar pots on a shelf just waiting, already leached for 3wk minimum, just waiting
)
