Avoiding Common Faux Finish Mistakes: 8 Tips for You
Faux painting is deceptively simple once you’ve got the hang of it. There are some basic errors that beginners often make that are worth noting if you want to achieve the results you’re dreaming of.
1. Poor materials yield poor results. With the right brushes and paint and importantly, a properly prepared surface, you will be well on the way to achieving the look you want. A surface painted with flat paint will not give you good results and subsequent layers will dry too fast to allow you to attend to mistakes.
Low gloss paints will give you a brighter finish than flat paint, which has a dulling effect on subsequent layers. The best base coat is satin or eggshell paint that dries slowly, giving you time to attend to any problems.
2. Forget fancy equipment. You don’t need it and you can find economical substitutes for specialist equipment. Buy quality paint and paintbrushes instead of splurging on gimmicks. As a paint palette try using ice cube trays. They have the added advantage of storing more paint. Almost any soft sponge will serve as an applicator and you don’t need to buy one from an art supply shop.
You can save yourself heaps by using common sense. Dishwashing liquid cuts grease and will even clean some oil-based paints (such as cream stencils), not only water-based paints. Leftover paint can be frozen rather than being left to dry out and hence wasted.
3. If your surface is pitted or cracked, it will need filling, and sanding when dry. A common error is to assume that that once your faux finish is completed your job is done. Wrong! You MUST seal with water-based sealer before painting, or your wall will look blotchy and diseased. Seal with a color that blends in with the rest of the wall or patches will show through. If you don’t have that original paint, mix the sealer with suitably colored acrylic paint to minimize the contrast.
4. Remember the old adage: oil and water don’t go together. It’s easy to skip reading the labels on the tin in your eagerness to get going but it can be a costly error. Know which of your paints are water-based and which are oil paints. Remember that latex paints contain water.
5. Clean conditions help create a neat finish. This applies especially to your brushes, which need to be thoroughly cleaned. If you don’t clean them properly you may end up with streaky paint and strange colors. You don’t need specialist cleaners but just running brushes under the tap is not enough. Cleaning pads for children’s art brushes are available for much less than the professional version.
6. Mess has a way of multiplying. Splashes and streaks are bad enough in your own home but they are unacceptable if you are working for someone else. If you do splash on carpets, don’t use water or chemicals to try to remove it. It could make matters worse. For small splashes, trim the ends of the soiled threads with a pair of small scissors when the paint has dried. If the patch is too large, a product called Goof Off may do the trick.
6. When using glazes, wet is the watchword! You need to finish in one seamless session. That means no bathroom breaks (so go before you start!) or refreshment interludes. Wet and dry edges won’t mix, the dry glaze won’t spread and it will show. Work fast, especially in hot dry climates.
8. It’s not only great artists who have their own style of painting. Your own rhythm and movement when applying paint is distinctive and if two people with different styles work on adjacent areas of wall, the difference can be obvious. Even your own style can alter over a day’s work: when you start flagging, for example. If it’s a team effort, work on different walls (or alternate layers). Your work will be more consistent if each area is completed in a defined session.
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