Yesterday afternoon I spent "weathering" all the raw wood on the Ruth set to look like weathered fruit crates or pallets. This meant washing the bright yellowish newness of natural pine or fir with dirty gray paint water. I had a bucket of medium gray very washy paint, a bucket each of black and cream, and a bucket of it-started-out-clean water. I'd wash the raw wood with the watery gray, then maybe swipe in a little black or a very little cream, so that each board varied in shade from its neighbors and changed tone a bit across its length. Brush strokes followed the grain of the wood - which runs the length of each slat.
Weathered wood - public domain photo from Public Domain Photos
Fun and easy... but slow.
Earlier in this project we painted most of the slats en mass before incorporating them into the structure ("Slats" post HERE), but we needed more slats than just those so, by now, the set has a lot of raw wood. About three hours' worth.
Which meant I didn't get to start the faux "concrete" floor because it wouldn't dry before rehearsal. So I'll be painting that Monday.
BTW that "concrete" look will be essentially the same grayish colors plus a little more brown, just applied differently: instead of streaked and wood grain-y, paint will be applied wet on wet and rather puddle-y with spattering into the still wet base colors, and letting some of the black stage floor show as cracks and discoloration.
I enjoy painting wet on wet... but it's hard to pull off on a large area like a stage floor. It dries too fast.
Time is not the painter's friend.
