Last time we showed you how to make glazes and washes for decorative painting. Here’s a quick rundown of a few techniques, along with some tips for good results.
In most techniques, you apply a base coat of paint and then the glaze.
In sponging on, you dip a natural sea sponge in the glaze and apply it to the wall in random patterns. To sponge off, apply the glaze over the base coat, and then roll the sponge around to remove and pattern the paint.
Guess how ragging on and off works. Apply the glaze with the rag, or roll it in the glaze coat.
You can get a textured effect with stuff you find around the house, such as corrugated cardboard, plastic wrap and crumpled paper. Experiment first to see what works.
Try dragging a natural bristle paintbrush through a wet glaze; you get a striped effect called strié. Or get a different effect by cutting V-grooves in a rubber squeegee and dragging it through the glaze.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. With glaze, your options are wide open, and you can get into marbling, antiquing, faux graining, faux moir‚ (a mixture of two patterns), and even scumbling, which is, using a paint brush to, well, “scumble” a light coat of glaze over your base coat.
A few tips
If you want even coverage, roll on the glaze before working it. If you want more variety in the final look, use a paintbrush.
You need to work with the glaze while it’s still wet, so it’s a good idea to have a helper. One person puts the glaze on; the other works on the effect.
Working with glaze is messier than a standard paint job. Make sure you cover up the surrounding area.