I'm still in the process of plastering my wood walls and scribing the stone for the contest dio ( Only 2 weeks !). One wall is scribed and I painted a gray base coat using automotive primer for the color, texture, and sealant, but now for the effect of hundreds of individual stones... is there a better way than painting each one separately? Would I use acrylics or chalks???

Help

#:-)

A good way to "separate" the rocks is a drybrush : first a heavy one, that will realy tint the rocks, then lighter ones to show detail and sculpture.

Not if you want it to look as if they all have a different colour.

If you want to put in a bit of extra time, try the following :
1) paint the seams between the bricks mortar color
2) paint all bricks in the same brick colour, keeping the brush dry enough to keep the paint out of the mortar seams
3) mix your brick paint with a touch of white, and paint a number of random bricks. Then mix a few drops of your brick color with some yellow and do the same. Try the same with some sand, brown, grey, black, or mixtures. All staying close enough to your original brick color, but still just a bit different. Paint random bricks with each of those colors.
The trick is to make mixtures that are only just a tiny bit different from the overall brick color. If you mix in too much color, it will look like a circus !
That shouldn't take you more than half an hour. With a bit of music on the background, it's done before you know it !
Looking forward to the result pics !!!


Jan

[quote]One wall is scribed and I painted a gray base coat using automotive primer for the color, texture, and sealant, but now for the effect of hundreds of individual stones... is there a better way than painting each one separately?[/qote]

If you want completely different colors on each, start into painting, my man. If you want a more unified look, which would indicate more intentional building, or stone form a relatively narrow environment, what I'd do is take the gray primed section you have now. Apply a wash. Start dry brushing the base caot and several successive lighter shades. For a bit of variety, you can choose some stone with gray dry brushing and others with tans. If you have a good texture to begin with, this should look like a stone building. Carefully add mortar when you're done the dry brushing. I've done rock walls, so I've been able to escape the mortar. If this is an expposed wall, some of the lower stones could have some green turf (Woodland scenics) added at the lower levels to replicate a bit of moss.

What I would do:
1)airbrush the entire wall in grey colour( which grey depends on what kind of stone s you have in mind).
2) Stain the cracks with black/dark umber to create the depth
3) Drybrush the entire wall with the base colour mixed with some white. For individual stones to stand out I would suggest drybrushing in different shades of grey.
4)Matt varnish for the entire wall
5)Pastels to weather the stone (To produce a sandy effect)
Hope this helps...............

Thanks everyone, I'll create a couple of small wall sections on scrap wood and try out the different methods to see what works for me. In case it makes a difference, the stones are roundish and random, it's also a semi-rural church.

Thank you for the suggestions .