Thread: wood grain painting technique?

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I'm thinking of painting my coffin and trying a wood grain, but I don't know what the best way would be to do a wood grain effect. I don't want to cut into the foam.

Hi,

Wood graining (faux finishing) is not as difficult as it appears to be. Most difficult part may be getting the finish to adhere to the foam.

The first step to creating a wood-grain look is to paint the object with a base coat of paint. This is the "background" or base color of the wood you want to simulate. If you want it to look like mahogany- use a dark pinkish or red color, Walnut - medium to dark brown, Oak - light to medium brown. Make sure you get a paint that will stick well and is compatible with oil based stains.

After your base coat is dry, you can add the graining effect. This is best done with a gel-stain. Pick a darker color stain that will best simulate the color of wood grain you want. This can be done with paint too, but I find that wood gel-stain, i.e. Minwax, is easy to use and gives more realistic results.

Now comes the graining. Depending on how much you want to invest in the project, there are kits available with tools to do this. But decent results can be had with inexpensive objects like plastic combs, a feather, paintbrushes (new and old), adhesive spreader, small piece of rubber stair tred.

Use one paint brush to apply the gel-stain on the surface (remember to keep the wood grain in a realistic direction - look at a cabinet or something to get ideas from) After the gel stain is applied on the area you want to grain, use your tools to start graining - like the comb. Move it in a pattern to simulate the wood (straight, wavy, or staggered). You can use dry paint brushes to blend the gel stain.. Play around with some scrap material first to get the hang of it. Research Faux Finishing on the internet for ideas and a more detailed explanation
Good Luck
Ryan

Heres some pink foam board that i made into a table and painted it , to make it look like wood . It turned out decent . there are more pics of it in my photo album !

Wow, the table looks awesome dept1031!

http://www.ghoulfriday.com/painting_...ards_cardboard

http://www.spookyblue.com/halloween/.../fake-wood.htm

Here are two good links that offer tutorials The first one is painting on cardboard, but I figure it's almost the same as in foam! Second one applies to the application you are seeking and Spooky Blue is just plain awesome

I did my coffin with a tool I bought from a local paint supply store in colorado:

http://www.garageofevilnetwork.com/p...ource=activity

my foam window boards I used gray latex paint and then used brown gel stain over it. the brush made a nice grain look and you can dab globs here and there for knots. The beauty of halloween is you want it to look old and crappy anyways so its pretty easy to get a good effect.

Here's the sign I did for my haunt. It's foam insulation board with the grain created using a woodburning tool. I followed SpookyBlue's methods. I know you said you didn't want to cut into the foam but it's really not that hard. Therapeutic actually. No matter if you carve or just paint the grain one detail not to miss is to do the end grain on the ends of the board - it really makes a big difference.

Really nice work Uruk-Hai.