Crackle Effect

First try in doing crackle effect. My first victim to the new transformation is a ordinary looking mini flower stand. What I did...first I applied sealer to the flower stand, let the sealer dry. And then apply the background color...I used white as I like white as a background color. But for the upper surface, I applied dark pink color to make contrast with the white.

I applied 2 techniques here to decorate the flower stand, 1) decoupage technique and 2) decorative painting.

The new face

3 basic step crackling process

1) Apply basecoat color (pink), let dry
2) Apply crackle medium, let dry
3) Apply contrasting topcoat color (in my case it's white, topcoat must be applied for cracking to occur)

The crackling will show when paint dries.

Close up

Tips

1) Apply a thin coat of medium for fine cracks, moderate coat of medium for medium cracks and thick coat of medium for large cracks.

2) Do not brush back over previously applied medium that has started to dry as doing so, may cause the crackle medium to lift.

3) When applying the topcoat, do it in one direction n evenly to get best crackle effect. Actually, we also can use sponge/dabbing techniques and we call it as Sponge Crackle. The technique I was using is Brush Crackle.

Crackle on the frame

My reference book, Decorative Painting Techniques by Di Singleton