The Dirt

Hello All!

Moving on to the paint and texture for my terrain boards, I had Canadian Tire mix up a Quart of a dry-mud color paint that I have in Decoart craft paint called Soft Suede. I use it for earth color on my bases so it will match nicely. Cost was $17.00 loonies. Hope it will cover 3 2x4 boards...maybe should have bought the gallon?

My research has found that most people do 3 steps; a sand/PVA glue coat, followed by a paint coat, followed by a PVA glue/flock coat. I wonder if this could be shortened to 2? I began by experimenting with paint, river sand, tile grout and PVA.

 The middle is a red/brown tile grout mixed with straight paint. I found it was too easily wiped off when dry. The right side is a mixture of river sand, paint and PVA glue. While it was durable, the uniform sand did not give the texture I wanted. The left side is tile grout, paint and PVA and again, it is too uniform.

The pic above is a mix of all; PVA, paint, grout and sand and looks the best to me. I stabbed it on with a big, old paintbrush to avoid the streak lines that the earlier tests found. Once dry I will test out its durability.

Cheers!

Troy