Start to finish with Lesli Kathman, part one

I've said it before, and I will undoubtedly say it again: One of the best parts of NaMoPaiMo is getting to peek over the shoulder of some of the hobby's most accomplished artists. In part one of this year's second "start to finish" guest series, Lesli Kathman lets us watch as she experiments with a new - and hopefully faster - way to paint a tobiano. Thank you, Lesli. This is amazing!

Start to Finish

by Lesli Kathman

Day 0: Like so many of you, I am on team #oilsinblack. However, since I am painting a black tobiano, I am also going to be experimenting with masking. My horse is already primed white, but tomorrow I plan to basecoat the black areas of the pattern dark brown. I've already found that airbrushed acrylic makes a great base coat for oil, but this time I want to experiment with how much time I can save myself with masking.

I have all my tools:

• Pencil - for drawing the pattern outline
• Kneaded eraser - for removing the pattern outline
• Miskit - my favorite masking fluid
• Clay Shaper - for applying the masking fluid
• Glue eraser - to help remove the mask
• #11 X-actos - to etch a more precise edge on the pattern
• Sealant - to make it more likely the brown comes up when I etch and the white doesn't

All to see if I can spend a little less time making parts of this horse white again. We'll see how it works!

Day 1 - One of the things I love about ceramic underglazing is that earthenware clay is a warm white. If you want an area to be white, you just mask it off - no painting necessary! There is so much about it that not only makes pinto extremely white pintos more manageable, but the end result looks more natural (ie., not painted over the top). One of my goals with this year's horse is to see how much of that working process can be transferred over to mixed media (non-ceramic). 

I am using this horse for Heather's black class - which starts tonight! - but I needed to get the white areas set up first. The reason masking works so well for ceramic is that the white surface is so sturdy. Once the colored areas are sprayed, the mask pops off and the edges of the pattern can be cleaned up by etching. This is an experiment to see if that works with acrylic basecoats. 

I primed this guy with a warm white (acrylic) using an airbrush. This morning I added pink tones to the muzzle, face and undersides. None of these are final colors, but the pinking helps me visualize how the pattern is working on the sculpture - especially the face. Once I had a reasonable suggestion of pink in those areas, I sprayed the whole horse with Krylon Satin. I would have used Workable Fixitif, but could not get it on time. He'll eventually be coated in Matte, but for now what I want is DURABLE. 

I then sketched the *rough* outline of the pattern lightly in pencil. This will be the edge for my masking. You can see the sense of the outline by the red line on the reference. The idea is that I will airbrush a colored basecoat where the black goes. While that is still fresh, I will pop off the mask and etch the outline to get a more accurate and detailed edge. 

Ideally I would have both white and black areas basecoated and ready to go for class - but I couldn't start until today and I want to give the pink areas another day to cure. That will put me a day behind, but if this works I will take days off the back end when I have to do the white parts! Fingers crossed..

Day 2 - Masking Day!

Yesterday I pinked the white areas and sealed everything. Today I am masking the white and adding the basecoat for the areas of the pattern that will be black. 

1 - Masking fluid is wicked expensive and it rubs off easily, so I prefer to wrap the legs with plastic wrap. I start by painting "bracelets" of masking fluid around the tops of the legs. This glues the plastic wrap down at the top. I use scotch tape to secure the wrap at the bottom (over the hoof).

2 - Now that he has on his plastic wrap boots, I paint the rest of the white areas with liquid mask. The trick is to get it on solidly enough that it peels up in large pieces, but not so thick that it drips and takes forever to dry. 

3 - Once the mask is dry (no wet spots!), I sprayed the model with dark brown acrylic. If you look closely, the overspray areas are speckled. I use thicker paint than if I was detailing the horse. I just need an opaque basecoat, and wetter paint tends to build up on the edges of the mask. I want an even coat without a thick edge where the color meets the white. 

4 - This is the fun part - peeling it up! The biggest trick to masking that saves time (instead of making more work) is to get it on the horse and off again as quickly as possible. If you let it sit too long, it tends to stick more stubbornly. Wait a really long time and it gets brittle and breaks rather than stretches. 

A word about those paint peels.. You want the paint to be truly dry but not cured. If it isn't dry enough, those peels will smear color onto the white. (That's not a huge deal, because you can paint white over it, but it does defeat the purpose of masking!) I usually wait just a bit after I do the "big peel" before I brush off the flaky bits. I don't want smears and I don't want them sticking to the other parts of the paint. 

5 - No matter how carefully you mask, you still will have extra paint in spots. I've started removing those from the hindquarters using a combination of the rubber cement eraser and an X-acto. 

Normally after I have all the excess bits of paint cleaned up, I will start "edging" the pattern by etching it away with the X-acto blade. I decided this time that my use of the sealant was really working. The paint bits are coming up really cleanly. Since that's the case, I am going to add my first layer of oils to the brown areas. Then when all of that is dry, I'll test the edges.

To be continued...