Faux Painting

• Once the wall was wet with paint, Keven used a short, stiff brush and used his fingers to press its bristles firmly against the wall. The bristles and additional pressure from his fingers gave the resulting look a dramatic texture. The texture appeared subtle at first, but as the paint dried to a darker shade the texture became more apparent.

• Keven suggested that this particular painting technique be done with a two-man team. Keven passed the dragging tool to Ron and proceeded to apply the glaze ahead of Ron, while Ron followed behind, dragging.

• This was a good quick technique with interesting wood like results.

• The next technique Keven showed Ron was very similar but with a different tool called a combing tool. The combing tool gave a little more of a hard edge line.

• The combing and dragging techniques are best used on smooth walls without a lot of texture.

3. Marbling:

• Keven explained the natural marble is most dramatic if it grows a certain direction. To simulate this effect Keven smeared squiggles of color diagonally across the surface.

• Next, he used a white contrasting color to fill the space between the first colors.

• Then he held his brush straight up and down and simply gave a gentle dabbing motion with the tip of the brush where the two colors came together. This subtly blended and softened the line between the two colors in a technique called stippling.

• The idea was not to blend the two colors into a third color, but to leave them separate blending only the spaces in between the two colors. He changed the direction of the brush several times as he blended.

• He used a big brush and dipped it into a brown color and gently tapped the brush above the painting surface to spatter color onto the surface. Just as natural marble has many different elements, spattering the darker color provided contrast and interest.

• Next, Keven used a watered down gray paint and a thinner brush to create "veins" in the design. He moved the brush along the surface, while slowly twirling it between as he painted.

• Keven allowed the line to become randomly thin and thick and sometimes broken. Marble grows in veins, in a tree-like pattern and Keven tried to recreate this.

• Next, Keven uses his wide brush again to soften some of the veins slightly so they were not so hard edged.

• For a final touch, Keven filled his brush with white paint and did a little more spattering.