Rock Painting: Making Artificial Stones for Painting Master Class

Recently, house cladding and interior decoration with natural or artificial stones for crafts has become very popular. In addition to external finishing works, various types of natural stone are used for interior decoration of the premises, which create comfort and decorate the house.

Types of Artificial Stones

• marble
• sandstone
• granite
• slate
• labradorite
• limestone, etc.

Such flat rocks for painting and claddings withstand moisture, sun and other destructive factors well and at the same time look very impressive and modern in the interior.

If you can't decide where to buy rocks for painting, you can always make a few by yourself. Artificial stone is easy to make at home. No special tools are required for its manufacture, and materials can always be purchased at the nearest hardware store.Cement is used for external outdoor works, gypsum for internal cladding.

How to Make an Artificial Decorative Stone with Your Own Hands at Home

• a plastic bucket
• a drill for mixing the solution;
• a  household scales;
• a trowel for leveling the surface
• some laundry soap
• a table or other flat surface
• a polyurethane form for filling;
• water;
• building plaster or cement
• colorful dyes (optional);
• finely sifted sand or gravel

Be sure to use a respirator or face mask while working, as the building powder penetrates the respiratory tract very quickly.

The Artificial Stone Production Process Consists of the Following Steps:

1. Determine how much gypsum or concrete is needed for one stone mold. If you fill in 5 molds at once, then the mix is made at once for all molds. The first fill can be done approximately, then weigh the same amount of material for subsequent fillings.
2. Prepare water in a ratio of 1: 1 to the measured weight of gypsum. It is important to pour powder into the water, not vice versa. A plastic construction bucket is suitable for mixing.

The water can be colored beforehand. To get different types of color intensity, different amounts of iron oxide pigment are used. For example, to get a gray color, pour a little black dye into the water.

3. Artificial stone is mixed with a drill with a special drill bit. Dry powder is gradually added to the water, beaten with a drill at low speed. This will prevent the mix from becoming lumpy.
4. After mixing the solution, carefully pour it into the molds, filling them to the top and leveling with a spatula. It is important to set the molds on a very flat surface.
5. After about 15-20 minutes, the completed stone tile can be removed from the mold. It will take a little longer if you add sand or plasticizer to the mix.
6. Drying. The completed stone should be air dried or you can use a hair dryer instead.

Making an artificial stone with your own hands is available to everyone and is a rather exciting creative process. You can make yourself best rocks to paint by changing the formula for creating subsequent stones by adding fine sand or gravel to the gypsum in a ratio of 1.5: 1 to gypsum or 3: 1 to cement, where for one part of cement is taken 3 parts of sand and for one part of gypsum 1.5 parts of sand respectively. Also note that the mix with sand hardens a little longer than pure gypsum.

Where to Buy Rocks for Painting

If you could not find the right stone for the intended pattern, and you do not have time to make artificial stone at home, you wonder where to buy rocks to paint. Since we are artists ourselves, we understand how important it is to have the right artistic tools. Therefore, we have prepared for you several options of high-quality stones for painting and crafts:

• Artistro Rock Painting Kit
• Tablet rocks for rock painting
• Grey small rocks for rock painting
• Big rocks for rock painting

We look forward to seeing your new artwork done with our products or homemade stones!

Making a decorative stone at home is a great way to create an original canvas for rock art, learn something new, and also get exactly the material that will delight you for many years. And painting an artificial stone with your own hands is also a creative process. After all, you create each stroke and come up with the concept of the painting yourself.

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