Phar out finishing techniques

[bradleyheathhays]

I've just begun collaborating with a local artist who wants to make a fairly large mural out of wood. The idea we've come up with is to design impressionistic type pieces based on arranging square wood blocks into the larger image. The plan is to develop different finishing techniques for the blocks to give them different color intensities, contrasts between the grain, and overall color. The blocks will be used as 'pixels' if you will in the larger image, so the smaller the wood block the higher the resolution of the final image. I would imagine the blocks will be between 1 and 2" square. The idea is mine but I'd never be able to do this without an artist. She'll be doing the true 'art' part and I'll just be providing as wide a variety of finishes on these blocks as possible. The wider her variety of wood blocks to choose from the better the end result will be.

So as an example, here's an art piece I found on Etsy. It seems the artist here has either baked or burn treated these pieces. I'm taking this idea as inspiration on how I can vary the finishes on these wood blocks. But I'd like to have as many coloring/finishing options as possible, which is the purpose of writing here.

What I need now are both wood species suggestions and finishing techniques. Just brainstorming so everything's on the table.

I need different wood grain size options. Need both wider and narrower grained species.

Would be nice to have a species where both the fast and slow growth rings take dye stain so they have the same hue.

Need coloring / technique suggestions. I've used General Finishes water based dye stains before so that's one idea for generating color.

Thanks for your ideas.

 

[Cabinetman]

Don’t know if these are available in the States (EDIT yes they are, Mixol dye) but they are brill, a few drops of the dye in water based poly varnish and off you go. I mixed up a wonderful turquoise once,

I mainly wanted it for the black, made in Germany btw.

 

[imageel]

Hi I've not used Mixol dyes however years ago I did use Kolorit range of tint concentrates for a range of applications with water based latex emulsions, solvent based oil paints and even 2K pre-cat paints.
I'm unsure if Kolorit are still in business, however I found them to be very good in all the applications I tried and for your intended use I'd have thought they are ideal whether water based or oil.
I found that they are highly concentrated so mixing up has to be done with care since you end up using very little - as in drops of dye in say a 2.5l tin of base carrier and the results are quite dramatic.
As said I've not used Mixol however they look like they are more readily available so would be worth giving them a try.

One aspect you need to be aware of and this is exacerbated by the low concentrations of dye you will use is the effects of metamerism - where the colours you perceive are affected by the spectral profile of the light being used to illuminate the object - you normally would expect some tonal differences say if an object is 1st viewed under tungsten filament light in comparison to say bright sunlight, metamerism if present can skew the hues in some strange ways which don't reflect the expected 'warm/yellow' hues you'd expect under tungsten and colder/blue under direct sunlight.
It is this affect that I suspect illustrates the differences folk perceive in Farrow & Ball paints and say similar shades mixed up at your local decorators shop

Good Luck with your project!

 

[XTiffy]

One area you will need to experiment with is the grain structure and its effect on colours or tints (even within the same piece of timber. Some timbers will have much more open (grain) pores, which will soak up stain and give a darker result. This can be reduced by using thinned shellac polish to "choke" the grain. With what you are doing I would suggest using an airbrush to apply stain/finish as it is possible to "layer" stain or even tinted finish.

 

[Jameshow]

I've just begun collaborating with a local artist who wants to make a fairly large mural out of wood. The idea we've come up with is to design impressionistic type pieces based on arranging square wood blocks into the larger image. The plan is to develop different finishing techniques for the blocks to give them different color intensities, contrasts between the grain, and overall color. The blocks will be used as 'pixels' if you will in the larger image, so the smaller the wood block the higher the resolution of the final image. I would imagine the blocks will be between 1 and 2" square. The idea is mine but I'd never be able to do this without an artist. She'll be doing the true 'art' part and I'll just be providing as wide a variety of finishes on these blocks as possible. The wider her variety of wood blocks to choose from the better the end result will be.

So as an example, here's an art piece I found on Etsy. It seems the artist here has either baked or burn treated these pieces. I'm taking this idea as inspiration on how I can vary the finishes on these wood blocks. But I'd like to have as many coloring/finishing options as possible, which is the purpose of writing here.

View attachment 173773

What I need now are both wood species suggestions and finishing techniques. Just brainstorming so everything's on the table.

I need different wood grain size options. Need both wider and narrower grained species.

Would be nice to have a species where both the fast and slow growth rings take dye stain so they have the same hue.

Need coloring / technique suggestions. I've used General Finishes water based dye stains before so that's one idea for generating color.

Thanks for your ideas.

Look at the way Lego do there portraits from Lego bricks. I'm sure there must be software that will turn a picture into pixel art?

 

[Cabinetman]

L

Hi I've not used Mixol dyes however years ago I did use Kolorit range of tint concentrates for a range of applications with water based latex emulsions, solvent based oil paints and even 2K pre-cat paints.
I'm unsure if Kolorit are still in business, however I found them to be very good in all the applications I tried and for your intended use I'd have thought they are ideal whether water based or oil.
I found that they are highly concentrated so mixing up has to be done with care since you end up using very little - as in drops of dye in say a 2.5l tin of base carrier and the results are quite dramatic.
As said I've not used Mixol however they look like they are more readily available so would be worth giving them a try.

One aspect you need to be aware of and this is exacerbated by the low concentrations of dye you will use is the effects of metamerism - where the colours you perceive are affected by the spectral profile of the light being used to illuminate the object - you normally would expect some tonal differences say if an object is 1st viewed under tungsten filament light in comparison to say bright sunlight, metamerism if present can skew the hues in some strange ways which don't reflect the expected 'warm/yellow' hues you'd expect under tungsten and colder/blue under direct sunlight.
It is this affect that I suspect illustrates the differences folk perceive in Farrow & Ball paints and say similar shades mixed up at your local decorators shop

Good Luck with your project!

Now that bit about metamerism (I do like a new word thank you) could explain why the turquoise bit I stained was impossible to take a pic of, I could see the colour but my phone thought it was something else entirely.
Ian

 

[niall Y]

Look at the way Lego do there portraits from Lego bricks. I'm sure there must be software that will turn a picture into pixel art?

There are programs like Pixel-Stitch that convert photographs/pictures into embroidery patterns for cross stitch. I believe they also list the colour of the embroidery thread as well.

 

[Yojevol]

You'll need to think about long term protection from UV degradation if the piece is to retain its initial vibrancy. In my (limited) experience colour tinted stains can look dull after a couple of years. Also the basic timber shade will darken quickly as the surface is exposed to daylight. I once had the chance to use some padauk to enhance the pear used for the basic structure. The initial attractive orange colour is now mid brown, much the same as countless other timbers.
Brian

 

[imageel]

L

Now that bit about metamerism (I do like a new word thank you) could explain why the turquoise bit I stained was impossible to take a pic of, I could see the colour but my phone thought it was something else entirely.
Ian

Haha!! The effect is down to the spectral emissions of the (painted or stained) surface you are viewing. Your eyes have a particular spectral range and a smartphone camera has a completely different one so what YOU see is not the same as what your phone sees. There's also the fact that some pigments the paint/dye manufacturer has used may fluoresce under certain wavelengths of illumination, so particular light sources may result in the tonal shading of an object being way off what perhaps it might be in say natural daylight.

One common example where metamerism shows is in fine-art black and white photos - these days few use real 'wet developed' photographic paper and instead use high res inkjet 'giclee' (French for squirt/spray) print techniques and often the pigments used to render the fine tonal shades of grey will add strange red, blue or green colour casts to the prints under certain lighting conditions.
So wrt your turquoise stain, I bet if you analysed spectrally you would find it comprised numerous dyes and a spectra that as a whole rendered to you a pleasing colour, however one which when viewed say on your phones camera looked completely different!

 

[Cabinetman]

It certainly did! Thank you for the master class.
Ian