Review and Tutorial : go create crackle coating

Today I'd like to show you some great stuff we found in a big hobby store.
It is called go create crackle coating and is an acrylic painting medium to achieve an old, used look of color.
Many of  you will know the Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint, which was shown in a great tutorial over at Massive Voodoo : http://massivevoodoo.blogspot.de/2011/03/tutorial-working-with-crackel-medium.html

The stuff we are talking about today is really different, other ways to use it, other results and other possible scales.
I'll begin with a short introduction of the product it self, how it is used, what should be known about it...and so on. The second part of todays post will show a little project I am working on right now.

Part One - The medium

As I said, the medium is acrylic based, so it can be thinned with water (I didn't try how this affects the results yet) and you can clean your brush with water and soap after applying it.

We bought that stuff at Boesner, a huge art shop.
I'll add their web address, so you can check out whether there is one near you, or you'll have to use their online shop: http://www.boesner.com/boesner/servlet/frontend/articleDetail.html?btUid=bt_Article&iDf_id=c0a81e6:-4cd97d27:10a032c891a:35c8&3rdKeywordOID=7f001:-47182655:11957e3ca1e:-77a1&2ndKeywordOID=7f001:-47182655:11957e3ca1e:-77a4&showAll=true&1stKeywordOID=7f001:-47182655:11957e3ca1e:-7944

The medium isn't that expensive for the big amount you get I think. It's very fertile.

You have to prime your surface with any colour your cracks should have in the end.

Then you apply the crackle coating, the bottle says to use steady brush strokes in one direction.
In the end, 80 % of the big cracks will run with the direction of the stroke, so you can achieve a more chaotic pattern by simply ignoring the manual :)
Another thing you can follow or ignore is the thickness of medium you apply. The manual advises a thin coat,
but a thick will intensify the results.

After everything dried (be sure it dried...or else you'll rip off the medium with the first brush stroke) you can apply any acrylic colour you like.

Again the manual advises us to use: short and gentle strokes with a thin coat of colour.
Fat coats will again intensify the result. (and have a way more intensive colour)

That all sounds very theoretical...and so I made a few tests to show you what results can be achieved.

You can see different consistences (more or less water)  from left to right.
The first row shows the colour applied thick, without taking the water out of it with a paper towel, your hand...
The second row shows the colour applied thin.

The red and green spots on the right where Tamya Clear Red and Liquid Greenstuff. Both weren't effected.

As you see, the results very really strong.
I'll do some testing on miniatures (I am thinking of sockets with a worn look, and old wood with really thin colour) and will show you my experiences soon.

Part Two - Bigger scales and use on furniture
I decided to redo my wardrobe, it is old kitchen furniture a friend gave to me when I moved into my new flat. It had stains, scratches and was white...nothing I like :)

So I took the first thing to hand, some chaos black spray because I wanted strong contrast between cracks and colour.

If you want to do something really big, like this door, don't use anything as a pallete then the big thing itself.
I used some bowl, but most of the medium wasn't usable, because it liked that bowl so much...the stuff is tough and sticky.

I decided to ignore the manual, as I always do, and applied very different layers of medium, some areas were thin as advised, others were really fat and needed hours to dry.

The medium keeps its shine in some areas, even when it dried. So testing around is your friend, if it doesn't stick to your fingers, it is dry.

Then I applied some colour, simple wall paint I used for my whole room.

Nice to know: You'll just have one stroke per area...if you brush over it again, you will take much of the medium with your brush and much of the color. So be sure your colour covers with thin layers. 

That problem didn't trouble me at the testing card I showed above, so maybe it was the wall paint or the fat coat of medium....don't know.

The crackling starts immediately.

After 20 minutes...

Everything dry and ready for further work.

Where the medium was really thick, big cracks showed up, that run into one direction, in the thinner areas you find small cracks that run chaotic, just as the Tim Holtz Crackle Paint achieves.

Have a nice day everyone