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For artists and collectors sponsored by Intercal...your mohair supplier and Johnna's Mohair Store
Posts: 1,277I'm working on a mohair bear (first one, yippee!!) and I've put leather eyelids on. The leather cord I found was a light beige color which I don't like; it's just too light. So I'm wondering what you all use to put color on your bear's lids.
Oil paint. Acrylic paint.
Gee, that was an easy one.
Posts: 1,277Well, I wasn't sure and I didn't want to screw it up as they're already glued in! I was worried to use acrylic because sometimes it gets kind of cakey. If I use oils, will it take forever to dry?
No, because you use SO LITTLE. I load my brush very lightly, then wipe, wipe, wipe on a paper towel, before every letting that brush touch my bear. It's better to work in micro-thin layers with oils, so you don't get globs, which smudge onto surrounding areas (like your mohair -- aargh!) This is a very different approach than when you might paint onto a prepared canvas with oils, when globs are sometimes the very point of using oils in the first place! They have a great blendability and you can just load them onto a canvas and then blend them right on the painting! But that's not the idea here, with bears.
Just use the tiniest smidge. You can even just insert the tippy top of a thin brush into the tube and wipe, wipe, wipe before painting.
If I want to add some metallic luster I use acrylics because, to my knowledge, there's no such things as metallic oil paint. I also apply that in a very thin wash, so it dries very quickly. Almost immediately, with the acrylics.
FYI, I never apply paint for an "opaque" effect. I always like to see a little bit of the original color underneath.
I've made several bears with very light cording which I wanted to darken, and sometimes the effect of adding a very thin wash of oil or acrylic paint just adds that right bit of shading and depth... you don't even end up needing to entirely "change" the color the cording to something "dark", per se. Here's a pic of one of my favorite bears ever (and a keeper for me!), AMELIE. She had very light tan leather cording eyelids which made her look like some kind of bulgy-eyed albino creature, with very protruding lids, until I added some shading to them. I used black oil in a very thin coat. Then I brushed with gold metallic acrylic. The lids didn't end up "dark", per se, but they do look significantly better and more shaded and natural, to my eye anyway!
Enjoy!
Kim-Bee BearsI always use acrylics in metallic shades They are kind of opaque so they are perfect!
Posts: 1,277Aww, Amelie is gorgeous. I can see why she is a keeper.
Well, I painted the eyelids and I'm pleased with how they turned out. I guess I was just having a really "duh" moment. I was worried about the acrylics being cakey, but using a wash was the perfect solution... :doh:
Thanks, Shelli, for helping me tighten those screws today.
Posts: 25Wow, are you guys painting the cording after it is already glued in the eye? I never thought of that. You both must have very steady hands. Any tricks to keep the paint off the eye/fur etc? Thanks for the input. Kim T
You can also use gel pens to colour the eyelids
Hugs
Gail
Posts: 1,277Yes, I did the painting after the lids were already attached. I actually didn't even consider painting before I put them in. Luckily the mohair I was working with was a sparse, short-pile so it didn't really get in the way. (Oh, plus I got a little carried away with my scissors so there wasn't lots of fur left near the eyes anyway! 
)I may have to think of something though for different fur type. As for getting it on the eye, I did get a wee tiny bit on it but it dried and then I just scraped it off with my fingernail. No big problem there.
LuxembearsShellis way is fantastic as evidenced by her beautiful results.
If you want to use acrylics use a very high qualtiy professional artist brand like Golden or Liquitex. I think that acrylics may get a bad rap sometimes because the "craft " acrylics are cheap and I would steer clear of those. Stick to qaulity. It costs more but your bears are worth it.....sounds like a Loreal commercial!!!
I want to try putting on eyelids but the only time I did try they looked funny. Do you scuplt the eye socket(?) then put in the eye and then put on the eyelids? The eyes kind of look inset to me?
Jane
