I'm getting near the point of finishing this sculpture. I want to stain it or something to make it look like the second image (which is AI, by the way). That really scares me. It's such a small, intricate thing to stain. Does anyone have advice on how to apply the stain evenly and what products to use? Do I use a paint brush? Wood conditioner?
The only thing I ever stained was cabinets, and that was borderline impossible without wood conditioner.
I posted this a bit ago. This is my first project. The bottom is definitely looking a little rough as I'm trying to get it finalized. How should I finish it? I am ready to move on to carving some alabaster, but I need to finish this first.
I was thinking about cutting off the excess on the bottom and then smoothing everything out and calling it there. Any thoughts?
Also, once it's sanded and totally done, what would be a good way to stain it or seal it or whatever?
This is my first attempt at carving. I wanted to practice with basswood to get an idea for how the tools work and feel before moving on to alabaster with a somewhat similar design. This was a mix of Dremel work and some whittling.
The final sanding is taking remarkably longer than I expected. Are there tips I'm missing? My current strategy is to take 0.5" x 4" strips of sandpaper and work it back and forth around the arms.
Over the last year I've tried two pots of various sizes and switched soil as well. I've tried watering mor| and watering less. I've tried more light and less light. It just keeps slowly losing leaves and dying. It's been slowly dropping leaves for the last 2 years.
Currently it gets probably about 3 hours of direct sunlight per day. I water it about every 2-3 weeks. It's not root rot because when I swapped pots to this smaller one, the root ball was totally dry.