So a little bit about our project:
Here’s the background. For my birthday this year (I turn 29 every year, but this was a big 29th birthday) I decided to fulfill a long-time dream of visiting Turkey. Why? Because it’s there. And it’s really cool! And they have amazing art and crafts and food and culture. If you haven’t been, look it up.
Anyway, I hooked up with two good friends and we put together a wishlist of all the really cool things we wanted to do and see like stay in a cave hotel, ride in a hot air balloon, visit ancient Greek and Roman ruins and check out an underground city. See? I told you. It’s amazing!
Then we (by we, I mean my friend Kathryn) sent the list to three local travel agents that we found from this excellent website, http://www.turkeytravelplanner.com/. (The writer is a friend of a friend of a friend – former Peace Corps volunteer, lived in Turkey, and has excellent info!) The winning response came from Deniz Turgot of Turkey Heritage Travel in Goreme. She gave us almost every single thing we asked for at a very reasonable price. So we wanted to bring a little something as a thank you.
Okay, what’s a good symbol of America that isn’t jingoistic or hokey or an $800 patchwork quilt? Luckily for us, my mom’s a huge fan of early American crafts and so I went to her. The result? A vinegar-grained keepsake box with a Rufus Porter-style painting on the lid.
We’re going to start today with the vinegar graining. In the next post we’ll do the painting and I’ll give some background on Rufus Porter.
Go With the Grain
Go With the Grain
CB: So what’s the deal with vinegar graining? Aren’t you just painting wood to look like, um, wood?
MOM: You can do all kinds of interesting treatments. You can make a box, for example, look like it is made of different kinds of wood, or marble or other surfaces. It's fun to use different items to get unusual looks. I use clay, feathers, index cards, fingers, saran wrap, and bubble wrap to name a few. Historically, wooden items were grained to make them look more luxurious. Sometimes the graining looks just like a certain kind of wood, such as expensive burled walnut, and other times it looks light and fun. Like, what tree does that come from?
CB: Ah! What kinds of things did people decorate with vinegar graining? And how was it displayed?
MOM: You can find examples in museums. Pieces that are beautifully vinegar grained are very sought after by collectors of primitives. They mostly did frames, boxes, dressers, chairs and tables. You can find lovely examples of entire bedroom sets that are grained. Often it was combined with primitive paintings.
CB: And how did you get into it?
MOM: I have always been drawn to the look of primitive antiques. I love the paintings and wall murals of Rufus Porter, an itinerant mural painter from the early 1800's. Paintings from that time are mostly framed in grain-painted frames. They just have an interesting look. I took several courses on painting in the style of Rufus Porter and made some frames for the pieces I completed. I was hooked and took two courses on vinegar graining.
Let’s take a look at the process.
Here are our materials:
- Foam brush
- Box or frame or tray
- Light grit sandpaper – about 220 or 330
- Inexpensive bristle brush
- Latex paint for base undercoat. Here we’re using a gold-ish mustardy color and an eggshell.
- Raw umber dry pigment (Gamblin)
- Plastic teaspoon
- Gum Arabic
- Apple cider vinegar
- A few small glass jars
- Rubber gloves
- Objects to make designs such as graining tools, popping paper, saran wrap, cake icing edgers, business cards, feathers, natural sponges, … you get the idea. Stuff that would make an interesting imprint in the paint pigment.
- Shellac in Bull’s Eye Amber
- Polyurathane spray in clear gloss
Directions
1. Lightly sand your box or frame or whatever with increasingly fine grit sandpaper.
2. Using the foam brush, lightly paint the surface with your base coat. Here we’re covering the entire surface. You can do the bottom too – but you’ll just have to wait a few minutes for it to dry.
3. Allow your piece to dry. It really doesn’t take long – maybe 5 to 10 minutes – but you can speed things along with a hair dryer.
4. Mix about ½ a teaspoon of pigment and a little less than a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar together in a jar. You should get the consistency of heavy cream – if it’s too watery add more pigment; if it’s too dry, add more cider vinegar.
5. Next mix in some gum Arabic – just a couple of drops will do you. This adds the necessary stickiness to the pigment so it will adhere to the surface.
6. Paint the pigment over a section of your box. Make sure to keep it wet – if it dries, add a bit more vinegar.
7. While it is still wet, use the tools of your choice to make a design in the pigment. What will happen is you’ll be able to move the pigment around to make lines, swirls, whorls, wigglies, etc., because it isn’t sinking into the surface material. It’s just sitting on top. The really neat thing is if you don’t like how it looks, just smooth it out and try again! Experiment with your different tools. Use your fingers. It’s fun!
8. Once you have a design you like, allow the pigment to dry. This takes a few minutes. Not too long. Believe me, my mom and I don’t have the patience for actually watching paint dry.
9. As you can see, we also decorated the edge of the box top in a different pattern. You can use painters’ tape (the blue stuff) to mark off different sections if you want to do different patterns, too. I guess what I’m saying is go wild.
10. Okay, we’re happy with the pattern. So now we have to make sure it stays there. To do this, we use the bristle brush to paint on a layer or two of shellac. Here’s an important pointer: NEVER USE WATER OR A WET BRUSH with shellac. What you will get is a clumpy unusable mess that you’ll have to clean with paint thinner or ammonia, or just toss. You can add another layer of shellac to make it shinier.
11. Okay, now the pattern is set so you can’t change it. Shellac dries quickly. Really quickly. Phew!
12. Once it’s dry, you can sand it very lightly with very fine grit sand paper (400 or up) to get the dusties out.
12. Once it’s dry, you can sand it very lightly with very fine grit sand paper (400 or up) to get the dusties out.
And there you have it! Vinegar graining!
