One Step Crackle Tutorial!

I had a great response with the last tutorial I posted so I thought I would make it a regular thing. This tutorial is about the crackle method I use on some of my pieces. Most crackle mediums are a two step process, but this medium is only one, which makes life much easier.

This is a very easy process, so I hope you will try it out.

Items needed:

Painted Piece (on any substrait)

One Step Crackle Medium from DecoArt

Dark Brown Stain or Acrylic paint

Damp paper towel

Dark brown or black oil pastel (optional)

Take a generous amount of the crackle and a soft paint brush and brush onto your painting (I even put it over my girlie's face, but you don't have to if you don't want). Remember, don't be stingy with the crackle, put a thick even amount on there...

Next, wait until the Crackle Medium dries (you can use a heat gun to speed up the process). In this picture you can see the cracks but they really don't stand out very well.

Next take about a teaspoon of your dark brown stain or acrylic paint (your choice) and squeeze it onto your pallet. If you are using acrylic paint, mix a little bit of water in the paint to thin it out. I usually take a spray bottle and squeeze it one time and then mix it with my paint brush.

Brush on the paint on in sections and then wipe off with a damp paper towel. Do this until you have stained the whole painting.

Now your cracks are showing...YAY!!

Now because I used dark colors on this piece, the cracks are more subtle, below is another piece I did with lighter colors and the cracks are more prominent.

The last thing I like to do is frame the edges with a dark oil pastel. In this case I used black (again, because the colors I used were so dark. I would normally use dark brown if the background colors are lighter). You color the edges with the oil pastel and then take your finger and blend.

Here is my finished piece after I added some embellishments. I think it looks very Victorian and old. "Christmas Angel" is now in my shop.

You can also see this piece on the Embrace the Face challenge blog. This months theme is Lace.