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Hand Painted Furniture - Faux Paintin...
If you would like to create a very decorative, colorful, unique piece of hand painted furniture, you may want to try faux painting. Faux painting can help you create an inspiring work of art and includes several different techniques. These techniques include color washing, sponging on or off, ragging on or off, and strie. Color washing, sponging on and ragging on are all additive techniques. Sponging or ragging off and strie are subtractive techniques. The reason this is important is that the glaze is mixed differently depending on whether you are using an additive or subtractive technique. For the purpose of this article, we're going to concentrate on additive techniques.
So where do you start? First, who is the furniture for, where will it be used, and what colors do you want to put together? I paint mostly decorative pieces for children and I like to use a lot of color and with faux painting, I can combine colors with various techniques. A good example is a small stool that I designed and faux painted for toddlers. I imagined that it would be used in a child's nursery or bedroom and I wanted to use colors that I thought a little girl would like. I went through paint chips and came up with three colors that I wanted to combine-soft pink, pale blue, and violet. Then I used a combination of two faux painting techniques - color washing and sponging on. In addition to using these techniques, I also added some accents on the stool with the main base color.
The first step is to prepare the furniture for painting. The stool I started with was a new piece of unfinished furniture. I sanded it until it was smooth and velvety. Then I applied a base coat of Valspar Enamel Undercoater which is an excellent primer for furniture because it sands so nicely and helps prepare the wood for the initial base coat. After the primer dries, sand the furniture with a micro sanding sponge to remove any raised fibers or rough spots in the wood. Then base coat the entire piece in the color you have selected. In my example, I used a soft pink for the base coat in an eggshell finish.
After the base coat dries, the next step is to mix your first glazing color which you will use to color wash or sponge on. For these additive techniques, you mix one part paint to four parts of glaze. For this step I use Benjamin Moore Latex Glaze. Make sure the glaze and the paint are thoroughly mixed. Then to color wash, take a soft cloth and dip into the mixture and wash the wood with the glaze mixture. Gently rubbing the surface in a circular motion with the glaze mixture creates a lovely, subtle design. Be sure to work in small areas and maintain a wet edge so that you will be able to blend your work as you "wash".
If you are sponging on the glaze mixture, take a sea sponge and dampen it with water. Wring out any excess so that it is only damp-not wet. Then dip the dampened sponge into the glaze mixture and dab off any excess. You want the sponge damp with glaze, not dripping. Beginning on one end, dab the colored glaze in a random pattern, turning your hand as you dab. For best results practice this technique on a piece of smooth paper or cardboard on which you have applied your base coat color. This will not only show you how well the colors work together, but will let you practice your sponging on technique before applying to your furniture.
After the first coat of glaze has dried, mix the next glaze color for the second coat of color washing or sponging on. Again, mix one part paint to four parts glazing medium. The second coat of glaze should be a slightly darker color than the first glaze to add depth to the wood. For my stool, I used a color washing technique on the top of the stool with two coats of glaze. The first glaze was pale blue and the second was violet. I used these same glazes on the stool legs but instead of color washing, I sponged the glazes on. I recommend using a small sea sponge for small areas. Since all natural sea sponges are unique, the results will also be uniq
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