Haze Long

Recently, Kim asked me to do a portrait for her new year gift to her boyfriend. I seldom take on requests but I wanted to do some studying and experimenting with wood painting lately so I agreed.

Dettol Soap for protecting my brush

I had an initial idea of masking selective parts of the wood and then painting it to give it some texture.. like leaves or flowers effect. However, the last time I used masking fluid with my brushes, I destroyed them completely. I found a way around this problem though, someone taught to use brush cleaning soap for this process but I decided to take a risk with a normal Dettol soap.

Coat the brush with soap before dipping into the masking fluid

So what I did was I coated the brush with the soap by rubbing it with a little bit of water on the soap. After the brush is slippery and white with soap, I dipped it into the masking fluid and masked the areas.

Masked background

If you take a look at the background.. the yellow parts are the masked areas. After the areas are masked, I painted a layer of pink gradient over the entire wood. After that I do my usual painting.

Satin finished and varnished painting

This is the finished painting. What you can’t see in this painting is the finishing. The entire wood is satin varnished and then the figures and foliage themselves have many layers of heavy gloss on them. So the selective parts are actually thicker than the rest of the wood.

I’ll be more than happy to extend this services to you if you are interested for a small fee( RM 80 – RM 240). I cannot guarantee a similar style as I will be experimenting with techniques and color schemes but I do put a lot of effort for each piece.

Like for example this process includes printing a copy of the photo with the decorations on top of them, and a few color tests before I actually begin the final piece.