Faux painting is an artisan technique used to give your walls a unique look and feel. Homeowners love to incorporate faux finishing in their homes for several reasons. First and foremost, faux finish techniques can imitate the look of aged or distressed walls, and therefore give your home the same old-world character of a Tuscan villa or French mansion of the distant past. Secondly, faux finishing can be used to disguise one surface as another, thus turning a plaster pillar in your home into one that looks like it is made of pure marble or granite. Lastly, many homeowners like faux finish application for its ability to incorporate multiple hues and tones to create a completely customized color for their favorite room. If you are dreaming of a unique and artisan look for a room or wall or architectural feature in your home, faux painting can help that dream come true!

Popular Faux Painting Techniques

Here are some of the most popular techniques used to apply a faux finish.

• Color Washing: As the term implies, the color wash technique is performed by washing one paint color over another color to give the effect of multiple layers of color. This faux finish mimics the imperfect plaster painted walls of decades past, and is an excellent way to create a complex and unique wall color.
• Dry Brushing: The dry brush technique gives walls a softly textured look by lightly brushing one color over an existing base color. Rather than being loaded with paint, the paint brush bristles are left mostly dry, and the faint lines provided by the brush allow multiple hues to show through.
• Fresco: This style of faux painting gives your walls a mottled or parchment look. This technique is especially desirable in Mediterranean-style homes, as it perfectly captures the frescoed plaster walls of centuries-old villas and palaces.
• Graduated Painting: The graduate painting technique moves from one paint color to another by softly blending them. Typically, one paint color is chosen for the lower wall, and a second similar color is chosen for the upper portion of the wall, and the two colors are blended along the middle of the wall.
• Strié: Before the rollers and the smooth latex paints of today, paint was a thick emulsion that was slathered onto walls with coarse brushes. Bristle marks from the brushes would appear in the thick paint, and over the years dirt and dust would collect in the grooves. Strié technique gives this effect, but rather than using thick paint and waiting for dust to collect over the ages, it reaches a similar effect through a complicated process of layering multiple glazes.

Faux finish can be used to transform an entire room, enhance an accent wall, or animate a unique architectural feature in your home. Indeed, for any area of your house, there is a faux finish technique to make it beautifully unique! The downside to faux painting is that in order for it to look good, you have to know what you are doing. You need to invest in specific tools, paints, and materials, and the cost can add up quickly. More importantly, you need to have the specific skills for the job. There are countless books and websites you can consult, and DIY television shows that will encourage you to attempt the job yourself. Unfortunately, many of the faux finish techniques require practice to make them look good, and busy homeowners who cannot make the time commitment end up disappointed in their own work. The bottom line is that faux finish techniques are beautiful, but it’s best to hire a good professional painting company to do the job!

Jacksonville FL Faux Finish Experts

Among the multitude of Jacksonville FL painting services, The Painting Craftsmen set ourselves apart in our devotion to the craft of painting. We excel in each type of faux painting, and would love to apply a fresco finish to your villa-style home in San Marco, or color wash a room in your historic Riverside Avondale home. Homeowners throughout Northeast Florida, including Atlantic Beach, Ponte Vedra Beach, and the greater Jacksonville area trust us with their artisan painting projects, and call us for all of their painting needs. Choose the perfect faux finish for your own room, and let us create it for you!

The post Faux Painting Techniques & What They’ll Look Like On Your Walls first appeared on The Painting Craftsmen.

Graduated Painting

In this art form, the faux finish begins and ends with the same color. Though this could be used on an outside wall, it is normally found in the rooms inside. At the bottom, the color is at its fullest, deep and rich. As your eyes follow the color upward, the color becomes lighter and lighter. It gives an impression of looking up toward the sun or down into the depths. The graduated painting may have a room appear bigger and more airy.

This is especially fun to have in a child’s room, where a large mural is painted on the wall, with the graduated painting as the background. In the den, the graduated painting allows for accents to be placed around the room. You may wish to highlight artwork or have a lamp or other piece of furniture stand out.

Solid and Washed Stripes

An interior faux finish pattern that goes with just about anything is striping. The stripes can fit any mood from playful to elegant. The trick is knowing the secret of the application. For, they can be made:

• horizontally, vertically or diagonally

• thick or thin

• with or without a border

• multiple colors or different hues

• equal size or varying

• same color, different finishes

They can be bold using two colors in compliment or more gentle with shades of the same color. An elegant look would utilize tone-on-tone stripes. To make every other stripe stand out, coat it with a satin or gloss of clear finish. In the children’s room, primary colors of vertical stripes can present a playful setting while a contemporary feel is made with the use of bolder hues and one horizontal stripe, which may be different heights throughout the room.

Since stripes can have an abundance of varieties, they can come across as trendy or fit nearly any period style. Stripes allow colors to be added without worry of overwhelming an occupant of the room or give the feeling of being stuck in a box.

Be cautious; the incorrect use of stripes will not give a desired effect of a higher ceiling, a more shapely room, a smaller enclosure or a larger area, as it can instead present a circus setting!

Smooth and Polished Fresco

When you wish to give the impression of smooth, soft stone, the fresco technique is used for a faux finish. The period setting of the classical architecture during the Renaissance era is a favorite. The appearance is a glossy, marble-like surface often found in modern, gourmet kitchens, or upscale libraries. The technique uses a combination of base coats with plaster. The surface of the plaster is then burnished for a polished sheen. (Please note this is more than a coat of paint and does require extra time for a perfect finish.)

Color Washing

This technique of a faux finish may give any room a more inviting feel or look to it. There is a soft glow to the room and this pattern is used for sitting rooms where guests are warmly invited for a visit. This is also used for covering minor abrasions along a wall in an artistic manner.

It begins by applying a base color, and given plenty of time to dry. A glaze is then added, using circular motions or random wiping with a brush (soft cloth or sponge). Each gives a slightly different appearance. For instance, a large paint brush will offer a more textured look. To acquire an aged patina look, use a lighter glaze over a darker one.

Layering and Distressed Finishes

This is often used in making furniture look antique. The idea is to give the surface marks and painting over it or by painting many layers and then removing some over the surface of the piece. This is normally found in an art deco setting.

Strié

In some cases, this is used in a child’s room to give a flair of the whimsical. It is also used in other rooms, when a cloth texture is desired. A glaze is added, which is rolled over the entire surface and then a brush is used to remove a portion of it. Streaks can be added vertically or horizontally. Or, they can be added one way and then the other for a unique look of denim or linen. Often, it is referred to as a burlap strié or a linen weave.

Dry Brushing

The idea here is to provide two different looks to a particular wall or structure. One technique may give rise to a texture, while another gives a muted color.

Professional Services

At the Painting Craftsman, we love what we do and have spent years perfecting our techniques. In a world full of money-hungry business, the art of customer service has become obsolete. Not in ours, though. Give us a call today and let us show you what happens when you combine an artisan with quality service.

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