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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Brick and stone: Experiment #1

I'm trying out stone and brick finishes for the exterior of Merriman Park.  On the far left is a stucco finish.  The middle is the accent color and on the right is my first attempt at stone.  I have to say, the "real" samples look a lot better than this photo!  Oh, well...

I also tried to do bricks, but something went terribly wrong and I am re-doing!  Not sure what happened --I think I ruined my batch of gesso-- either too much glue or not enough.  Or maybe the coats didn't dry long enough?  Not sure.

The stone and bricks are done the same way: a layer of gesso, then layers of paint on top to mimic the stone or brick color. Once that dries you scribe the mortar lines with a straight edge: larger squares for stone, smaller for brick.  Then you go back with paint and touch up the individual stones.

I've tried using different tools to scribe the mortar joints, but haven't discovered the definitive one, yet. The tong of a dinner fork seemed to work best, but there must be something better than that!  Looks like there will be more experimenting with tools and colors until I figure out what works and looks best.

2 comments:

Karin Corbin said...[Reply]

I believe that Bluette uses really narrow tape for her mortar lines.

Chartpack graphic tape comes as narrow as 1/64", next is 1/32" and incrementing on up.

Stretch the tape over your background after it has dried. Roll your stone mixture on next. Then pull up the tape.

No scoring needed!

There is a video of this technique.
http://www.mindstorm-inc.com/pages/vid/mm01.html

You might be able to check it out of the NAME library.

John said...[Reply]

Hmmm, I wonder how you mark off the vertical lines of the individual bricks? Might be possible with stones, but 3/4 X 1/4" bricks? I'm afraid my fingers are too clumsy to work with tiny bit of tape that small!