Creative Do it Yourself
Faux
Painting Techniques
Faux Painting Techniques
Using faux painting techniques is a method of creating a look that makes surfaces seem like something they're not such as wood, marble, leather, stone or aged plaster. Faux in French means fake and faux painting has become the perfect artform designed to fool and delight the eye.
In most painting jobs we strive to make the final result smooth unstreaked and even without any visible defects.
Faux painting strives for just the opposite approach by having more than one surface visible in order to create the effect of contrasting streaks, lines, swirls and blotches.
The beauty of using decorative faux painting techniques is the wide variety of styles and beautiful artistic finishes that you can achieve just by utilizing a large porous sea sponge, cheesecloth, rags, combs and brushes.
Where to Start:
If you're game for a faux painting project, you may want to get started by
exploring various ways to achieve a mottled look with glaze. Not only is this subtle blending of colors one of the easiest and most popular faux painting techniques but you can use it by itself or combine with other more complex looks and techniques.
Mottled looks go by different names including color wash, antique glaze, parchment and leather.
However, they're all variations of the same effect which is translucent color or colors swirling over a base color, resulting in a mixture that varies in intensity from one spot to another.
Mottled looks run the gamut from subtle to vivid depending on whether you want a parchment look or something that resembles leather. All of these can be easily accomplished with the right combination of base paint and glaze colors.
There are several methods for producing a mottled look and each results in a slightly different effect:-
- Mottling with a rag or cheesecloth - Produces a network
of small random lines and streaks depending on how you
fold the cloth and whether you blend the glaze by rubing
or pouncing with it.
- Mottling with a brush - When you use a brush to apply
glaze
you leave obvious bristle marks that create long swirls that
emulate marble.
- Mottling with a two-part roller - Using a special roller
and
paint tray you can apply two colors of paint at the same time.
Rolling back and forth in random directions, the color blends
and creates a mottled look.
- Mottling with a feather duster - What fun! This
faux painting
technique produces a mottled look marked with distinct lines
and highlights.
- Mottling by rag rolling - Produces a mottled look with
distinct
lines when applied with gloved hands and a twisted rag.
Shortcuts to Good Color Combinations:
If you're in a quandry about how to select the best color combinations for your faux finishing project and faux painting techniques, consider using colors from upholstery fabrics, carpet, artwork or the earthtones in your flooring and woodwork for color inspiration and ideas.
Some homes are filled with a mish mash of decorating styles and colors while others have decor that is pulled together. The difference often stems from color choices.
Even if you plan on decorating one room at a time, the way the colors flow and relate from one room to the next is very important in creating a harmonious look.
Understand interior design colors and their relationships on the color wheel should also help you to determine your color scheme and the right complementary color combinations and faux painting techniques for your project.
Stuff you'll Definitely Need:
There are many different materials and tools used to create faux finishes and it all depends on the technique you choose what type of tools and materials you'll need.
That's why we recommend a faux painting kit for beginners so you don't wind up buying unnecessary supplies that you'll never use.
However, you will definitely need most of the following:-
A good sturdy ladder
A level with printed measurements
Tape Measure
Blue Painters Tape
Colored Pencil
Plastic trowels
spackling compound
2 roller pans
4 inch and 7 inch mini roller pans
4 inch and 6 inch mini roller covers
4 inch and 6 inch mini roller frames
1 quart paint bucket
2 half quart container with printed measurements
10-in-1 tool (cleans paint rollers,opens paint cans
pulls nails,opens bottles,spreads and scrapes)
Pour spout for gallon paint can
Plastic drop cloth
Synethic Brushes - choose the right brushes for the job
Foam pads
Medium Glaze
Paint and/or Tint
Stir sticks
Spray bottles
Faux painting kit which might contain a lot of the
above items.
Preparation is Crucial:
Before you start deciding on any faux painting techniques, make sure your walls have been properly prepared.
That means you'll
need to fill cracks, holes or depressions after which the walls may
also require some light sanding before you paint the walls with a
primer or sealer.A primer adheres well to materials such as drywall and patching compounds and it makes the surface evenly porous without which some areas are likely to absorb more paint than others.
After the primer coat dries it will be necessary to top it with two coats of eggshell or semi-gloss paint so that the surface will be slick enough for you to manipulate a glaze layer.
Masking surfaces you don't want to paint:
For example:-
- Mask the ceiling and the trim if you're only painting the walls.
- If you're painting all surfaces in the room, paint the ceiling first.
- Then mask the ceiling and paint the walls.
- Finally mask wall surfaces next to trim and paint the trim.
Start on a Test Surface - Practice Makes Perfect:
Creating decorative faux painting techniques requires practice especially if you're a rookie.
Do this on sample boards, not your walls.
Make the boards from foam core, hardboard or drywall scraps and paint them with the same primer and base coat that you will have on your walls. Depending on your chosen technique, it might take a number of boards before you feel confident enough to tackle the project for real.
Caryn and I faux finished some kitchen cabinets in a giraffe design and we had to practice on boards making our share of mistakes before we finally declared ourselves experts. A little patience and persistence and you'll have the technique down pat in no time.
Which is the Right Faux Finish for You?
There are so many wonderful faux painting techniques you can create to give your walls depth and complexity as well as beautiful translucent color and other more intricate techniques that it is impossible to cover all the instructions for each technique in detail here.
Instead we'll give you a run down and a good description of the most popular faux painting techniques to help you make some educated choices.
If you're a beginner we suggest purchasing a faux painting kit for the technique of your choice. This will save you the time of worrying about the right kind of tools and equipment you'll neeed for your project as well as saving you time and money.
To give an Old World Look:
Sponging On:
Sponging is one of the easiest faux painting techniques you can try. Simply pat various colors on to a base colored wall using a sea sponge. The more colors you sponge on the greater the illusion of depth.
Ragging off:
Ragging off also introduces a mottled texture similar to sponging but softer.
Simply roll glaze over a base coat color and then quickly remove with a damp cotten cloth. Reshaping the cloth can produce an assortment of textures.
Aging:
You can also give your walls a timeworn textured finish by applying different colored paints in earthtone colors using a brush and a trowel and then blending with a damp sea sponge.
Very Popular Venetian Plaster:
Venetian plaster is an old world faux painting technique that gives walls a
silky smooth finish with a slighty mottled appearance.
Venetian plaster is mostly binder with a small amount of tint and is applied using a trowel and rounding off the the corners of the trowel to avoid leaving straight lines in the plaster. The darker the tint color the more variation in finish and the lighter the color, the softer the look.
By appling a specially formulated top coat which makes the finish very durable, venetian plaster is an ideal choice for kitchen, bathrooms and high traffic areas.
Frottage:
Frottage which is French for "rub" is definitely a special effect created by
pressing film or fabric into glaze and then peeling it off which results in a
richly varied texture far different from what you can do with a brush or a roller.
You can use drop cloths, dry cleaner bags or burlap. Crumple sheets of glossy newspaper pages pressed into the glaze transfers some ink which adds a mysterious mottled look.
Mimicking Fabrics:
These faux painting techniques give the illusion and the elegance of fine fabric such as linen, the more casual look of grasscloth and the soft touchable texture of suede.
Created with a specially finish roller and specially formulated paints these are fairly easy techniques to master but they do require practice and patience as well as sectioning the wall into a series of narrow panels with painters tape allowing you to complete each step quickly
.These simple techniques consist of nothing more than rolling on the base coat and then dragging a dry brush in sweeping overlapping strokes or vertically through wet glaze that has been applied on top of the base coat.
Strie:
With this elegant faux painting technique it will be necessary to work with a partner as you have to work quickly before the glaze starts to dry
.A special dragging brush is used to create clean vertical lines from floor to ceiling by dragging the brush through the wet glaze.
For coarser more pronounced lines you can use a clean wisk broom or a wallpaper brush.
Dragging requires speed and a steady hand after the glaze has been applied to the surface.
A strie finish offers a sophisticated look and is well suited to a formal
decorating scheme using complementary colors and tints and shades of the same color for a soft subdued effect.
You can also give your walls the look of leather by cutting a section of plastic drop cloth and applying the plastic to the glazed section of your wall.
The more you wrinkle the plastic, the more texture you'll achieve with this faux painting technique. Using a light glaze over a dark base color gives a more muted effect.
The denim wall is a great choice for kids rooms and is an excellent faux painting technique is you're a beginner because it's hard to mess up.
Creating a denim wall requires a tinted glaze mixture and two faux finishing tools, a denim brush and a denim check roller. After you section of the wall in panels you simply roll on a blue print glaze onto a light blue base coat and drag a brush through the glaze using vertical strokes wiping with a damp lint free cloth after each stroke.
Texture:
Texturing paint adds depth and dimension to walls and is a great faux painting technique to use to hide imperfections.
In fact when you're preparing your walls you only need repair large holes and cracks before applying the primer and base coat.
The paint is easy to apply with a thick nap roller and the more texture you add to the wall, the more dramatic the final effect. If you have an older home with walls that are timeworn texuring paint is the perfect solution to restoring their original beauty.
Color Washing:
Color washing is another one of those very popular faux painting techniques that creates a subtle multi dimensional finish by blending layers of glaze over a dry base color.
Once again it's recommended and easier to work if you section off your walls in 2ft panels.
In the same way texturing paint can hide of multitude of sins, color washing can also be applied on highly texured walls or on wall surfaces with imperfections by brushing the glaze with a cross hatching motion.
You can also try a graduated color wash by using several related colors.
These colors are rolled on horizontally in 2ft sections and then dry brushed to blend in the edges where the two colors meet.
Whitewashing:
You can create this faux painting technique by brushing diluted paint on to any raw wood surface. However, this is a messy technique because of the diluted wash mixture so you'll need to be viligant about constantly wiping up splattered paint.
Also with this technique you'll need to finish one wall before moving on to the next or the stopping and starting points will be obvious. It is however, an excellent technique to use on wood panelling to achieve a shabby chic effect.
Double Rolling:
Using twin rollers to roll two colors together rather than using brushes or rags offer faux painting beginners an easy way to get a lovely color washed effect.
Just keep rolling and re-rolling with the two colors until you have an effect you like. The only tricky part is cutting in the corners to match the mottled effect on the rest of the wall which you'll have to accomplish with small rollers and a brush.
For a lovely soft touch mixing paint with glaze using one part paint and four parts glaze, the doubled rolled colors will produce a more translucent look.
Popular Geometrics:
Vertical Sripes:
Vertical stripes are one of the most versatile wall finishes and one of the most popular faux painting techniques.
They complement any decorating style from sophisticated and sleek to casual and relaxed depending on the width of the stripes and the colors selected.
Here you'll really need your level and tape measure to mark off where to position your painters tape. It's best to sketch your design on paper just to help you visualize the pattern.
Horizontal stripes and Diamonds:
Horizontal stripes look great using a metallic paint finish to create a sleek sophisticated look.
Cool hues of blue and gray metallic paints combined with horizontal stripes create a dramatic background for contemporary furnishings.
You can also go a step further with your faux finish and opt for combed stripes using a paint comb.that creates a more
subdued look or you can create an interesting harlequin diamond pattern that gives a happy energetic effect.
For more subtle and softer tones these patterns can be combined with other faux painting techniques such as color washing or any of the simple mottling techniques using just a sea sponge.
Interesting Blocks:
If you're extra ambitious, experienced or both, you can also turn your boring walls into exciting focal points using blocks of color. The blocks can be uniform in size and shape or you can vary the sizes and combine square and rectangles.
The trick is to create a visually balanced arrangement which requires careful planning of your pattern on paper and precise use of masking tape on your walls.
We would venture to guess that these faux painting techniques are not for the faint-hearted.
Stone and Marbelizing:
Once again, it takes experience and you need to be able to faux like a pro to achieve the realism of the heavily veined look of marble.
The secret is to brush light and dark color paints onto pieces of plastic wrap and apply them directly to the surface.
The effect is ideal for a focal point wall or surrounding a fireplace but this particular faux painting technique can take a lot of practice before achieving the lovely soft elegant look or the dramatic classical one of genuine marble.
You can also transform your walls into an architectural feature with a look of stone by using textured paint and applying in rectangles of varying sizes to give the look of stacked stone.
With this faux painting technique you'll need to plan your design on graph paper keeping the blocks large to simplify the design.
Then you'll have to map out the pattern on your wall by taping off the stones with low-tack painters tape. Once again not a technique recommended for beginners or someone who lacks patience.
Stencils - The Ultimate Finishing Touch:
You can create a wide range of decorative effects and architectural interest with decorative stencils.
There are many styles of stencils, including elaborate shapes and those that emphasize historical periods for more formal settings.
Stencil
designs in a single line running along the
top of a wall can add special interest and if you stencil with venetian
plaster
or another textured material, your design will take on a
three-dimensional quality.Of course stencil designs are perfect for decorating a kids room. Creating borders in fun designs or a random array of stencilled flowers or animals will add charm and add color as well as create a delightful environment for your child.
Another popular faux painting technique for kids rooms is painting white billowy clouds over a blue sky.
A cloud motif fits perfectly into playrooms, bedrooms, nursery or bathrooms. Clouds can also be painted above a chair rail offset by a pattern of stripes and checks.
We could talk endlessly about all the faux painting techniques you could use to decorate your walls.
If you're a beginner we suggest choosing an easy faux painting technique and a small project to get started. Faux finishing a bathroom, a powder room or a kids room would be a good starting point to hone and test your skills.
A faux painting kit with structions for your chosen technique is the way to go for your first faux decorating project, or if you're interested in learning a lot more and taking classes, faux painting also makes a very rewarding and profitable business.
The online faux painting companies as well as selling all the necessary faux painting supplies, tools and kits that you'll need also offer very educational and free faux painting videos where you can see first hand all the faux painting techniques demonstrated by professionals.
Whatever you choose we hope you we have helped you understand the wonderful world of decorative painting and the faux painting techniques needed to create whatever mood you want for a room in your home. Light, bright, animated, subdued, aged - you can use beautiful paint and decorative techniques to help create it and transform your walls into a work of art.
