I can make intricately v-carved wooden plaques all day long at a good pace.

However,

I am about at my wits end at painting color in the carving, mostly gold paint in the carved areas. The process takes forever and doesn't look particularly great. I really need a better way to do it, i.e. faster and neater, or I am going to have to give up on the whole idea.

The process I am using is:

1. Carve the plaque from unfinished wood, sanding lightly when done.

2. Brush a coat of shellac over the carving areas and let dry (shellac dries in about an hour) so that the color doesn't bleed into the wood.

3. Brush color into the carving, trying to be as neat as possible and wiping most excess off.

4. After the acrylic color dries (about an hour) I then sand the face of the board to remove any spillover of color.

5. I then apply a finish coat of poly.


This takes way too much time, especially in brushing the color. If I am too sloppy in step 3, the sandpaper gets gummed up badly in step 4. If I am not very careful in how I wipe the excess color, I wipe color out the grooves and have to re-do it with a brush, and no matter how careful I am it seems to happen 50% of the time anyway.

I sure help someone has a better way they can tell me about. Help!