Tole painting, which originated in the 18th century as a way to paint on metal, is a popular craft hobby among many people even hundreds of years later. Told painting involves painting on wood.
If you’d like to learn how to tole paint your wood crafts, the following are a few tips to get you started.
Buy good quality brushes.
As a general rule, you will need a few basic brushes that will help you as you begin painting your creations. Brush sizes 10, 14, and 16 will help you with floating, used to shade and highlight. A liner brush 10/0 will help you outline, and you’ll need a good base coating brush or sponge brush. You can add more brushes to do different techniques as you develop your projects and skills, but for now these basic ones should be enough to get you started.
Other brushes you will eventually want include:
Fan: this brush is used to create texture. Used dry or with only tips of brush loaded with paint, the bristles are shaped like a fan.
Filbert: this brush has the shape of a flower petal or leaf and will help you to create soft edges and create leaves.
Round: this brush has a pointed tip and is usually used for stroke and detail work like conuna strokes, writing, vines, or eyelashes. This brush comes in a number of sizes, which you will want to purchase eventually.
Practice your stroke work
This is learning to control the brush, which is fundamental for learning new painting techniques. The basic strokes you should practice include the "S," used for curving lines; the circle, for round objects; and the "C," for filling in certain shapes and for forming shadows or highlights.
These are other strokes and techniques you will want to learn as you become more advanced:
Floating: one side of a flat brush is loaded with paint, and the brush is stroked on palette until you reach your desired blended color.
Antiquing: this technique is used in finishing a painted item that gives an aged or darkened look to the paint and is usually applied to the wood, then rubbed off.
Dry brushing: this technique uses a dry brush with a minimal amount of paint on it to add shading or highlighting to a specific design. The brush is dipped in paint, and then most of the paint is removed from brush with a paper towel or rag.
Wash: with this technique, water is added to dilute the paint and make it either lighter in color or transparent. With a wash, the wood grain can be seen through the paint.
Use the right paints.
When it comes to paints, you’ll have a variety of choices. All you need to do is choose the paint that is best suited to your surface. Choices include watercolor, oils and acrylics, and others. Acrylics are the best for beginners, as they dry quickly and have a number of ready-made colors. They are also inexpensive, so you can easily experiment with acrylics without spending too much.
Tole painting is a fun hobby and a great way to decorate your wooden crafts. If you are interested in taking up tole painting, practice with various brushes, strokes, and paints. You can also take a class to improve your techniques and learn more.