Faux Antique Pine Kitchen Cabinets - Paint Technique

Continued from the previous blog where we left off having primed the embellished cabinet doors with Gesso...Above is a photo of what the cabinets will look like at the end of this post.

The antique pine finish is made with acrylic paint and an "antiquing glaze" product which is usually sold in the same type/size bottles as the acrylic bottled paint.  Look for antiquing glaze products in the same aisle (with the paint) in Michael's or Hobby Lobby.

Here is another look at the finish I was trying to mimic.  This is a clipping from a magazine of an antique pine dish cupboard.  At the bottom of the photo are my trials in paint base coats.  At the bottom right is a laser cut decorative piece that was provided in the kit for embellishing the lower cabinets (future blog post):

So to continue with the faux paint technique, you will need:

400 grit sandpaper
Base Coat acrylic paint (I used a mixture of Maple Sugar and Desert Sand)
Plaid (brand) "Antiquing Medium" - Cocoa Bean (or any of the dark browns)
Ceramcoat (brand) Burnt Sienna
Plaid/Folk Art (brand) "Extender" - allows mixing paints without drying out quickly
Small, flat paintbrush, preferably the width of the door frames

Sanding - After the gesso was dry (last blog post), sand just a little on the flat areas using 400 grit sandpaper.

Pine Base Coat - I needed a base ‘pine’ color, like a yellow or tan.  I experimented with both Maple Sugar and Desert Sand and both seemed good.  I ended up using a little of both – not entirely blending them together but using a little of each here and there as a base coat.  Base coat the entire cupboard door.

Glaze – I practiced a lot on scraps of wood.  See photo below.  This was a lot of trial and error mixing the glaze product with a dark reddish brown (Burnt Sienna) and "extender", trying to get it so it was thin enough to flow and easily wipe off.  The practice piece with 'carving' (actually a scrap of laser cut fan blade) has dark splotches where I was trying to make 'knot holes'.  You can kind of see the different base coat colors under the glaze streaks.  Practice on a paper plate then something similar to your doors.

On the actual cupboard doors, I glazed sections at a time.  First one of the vertical frame sections then the other vertical then the horizontal. I dipped my paintbrush in a tiny amount of each of antiquing glaze and burnt sienna.  I then dipped the brush in a little of the extender and brushed back and forth on a palette (actually the flat area between the little dips in the plastic paint pan).

This diluted glaze mixture I brushed over the faux carved area and the flat areas of the mat board in long strokes with the “grain” (vertically on the cabinet door).  After lightly covering one side of the cupboard door, I then dragged the brush up and down (flat area only) making sort of a wood grain.  Then I just touched the end of the brush bristles sort of making a dotted design (like a knot or branch) here and there.  The extender makes it easier to go over it a few times until it looks like wood. 

When finished with one area of the cabinet door, move to the other vertical surface then do the horizontal frames.

It’s hard to explain the technique but I practiced a lot on paper plates before actually doing the cabinet doors to get a look I liked.  Here is an up close look at the doors.

When the cabinet faces were done, I did the edges of the doors and the edges of the window openings.  Then do the cabinet sides, bottom and tops trying again to use the brush to make streaks like wood look and knot holes (if you are ambitious!)
Here is a photo of the bottom of one of the cabinets (where I was cutting a hole for the wiring).  You can see the streaks of the wood grain. You can also see two different base coat colors where I changed my mind (but it was under the cabinet so I didn't attempt to fix it!)

I didn’t use any kind of top coat or varnish after painting and glazing because I wanted a sort of ‘dry wood’ look like the unfinished pine antiques I have seen.

That's it for the faux pine look.  Next blog we will embellish the lower cabinets using one of my favorite 'faux carving' techniques - to be revealed soon!