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And Paint Faux Block!

Faux Block? Is that something that is glued on the wall? What kind of texture stuff would be needed to paint a faux block wall? How in the world would you create a faux block wall out of a flat - lifeless - boring white wall?

Simple - if you already have the Beginner Guide to Professional Faux Finishes - Faux Brick. This easy step-by-step tutorial about faux painting a brick wall will guide you from start to finish…down to the tiny brush strokes… so you get beautiful results and fantastic "they look so real" faux bricks.

And that isn't all…

Make just a few simple changes to the faux brick instructions and you will be on your way to painting large masterful faux blocks.

Student Requests Faux Block Information

I have a student who requested instructions and helpful hints on how to change what she knew about painting bricks into something chunkier and heftier but with a lighter color.

 She was impressed with the photo of a block fence with a beautiful block arch. I shot this picture on a trip to Atlanta, Georgia. You can view the photo on the front cover of this special report and it is also featured on page 25 of the Faux Brick e-Book.

So for Susie and all you faux brick painters…

Let’s Go Paint Block!

Free Bonus Reports included with the Faux Brick e-book and video course.

When you purchase the Beginner Guide - Faux Bricks you are rewarded with two special FREE Bonuses -

Bonus 1 You will instantly have access to my custom Faux Block Painting Technique instructions in this Free Report. Step by step photos and instructions show you how to paint blocks by adjusting the techniques taught in the Faux Brick eCourse. Imagine adding this faux block technique to your decorative painting album. Once you have mastered the painted faux block technique you can also add 3-D dimension with all the shadow and highlight techniques taught in this 15 page report. FREE

Bonus 2- Immediate Download. Free Report with over 20 step-by-step photos, templates and techniques. Now You Can Paint Gorgeous Grape Clusters on your Faux Painted walls. Find out the secret inexpensive tool this professional painter uses to create beautiful glowing grape clusters on faux painted walls. Also …you'll see these amazingly easy to paint grapes come to life with shadows and highlights. FREE

And…..you also get another free bonus with purchase that is a Secret! Plus… all my students get first peek at all new products introduced… and if any special prices or coupons for products are available, you would get first pick as well.

All this is available now… and it's at a special price! So what are you waiting for???? Go check it out now… Faux Brick Package.

Okay, now it's time to get started faux painting a brick wall. You won't know if you can faux paint a brick wall if you don't get going. Draw out a few rows of bricks, using your template and the video as a guide. If you find that after 3 or more rows you don't like the pattern or you don't like how the bricks are landing at the end of your rows, you are probably using the wrong measurements for your grout lines.

No matter how well you prepare for this or how well you try to measure out that 1/4 or 1/2 inch grout line it might come out wrong. You are not a professional brick layer. You might have to wipe down your wall and start over.

Keep track of what you are doing on a lined piece of paper. Not happy with how it is going? Tweak up your grout spacing and try again. You may find that the brick template you made is not working out. Cut it down an inch in length and see if that makes a better pattern. I know this may seem tedious but it's better to fix it now than after you start painting.

TIP: From time to time, step away from your work for twenty or 30 minutes. Go have some lunch or wash the dishes. Give your eyes and your brain a break. When you come back and look at the work you have done, you will see in an instant where you have made any errors. It will be easy to let that pass.

There is a place in our minds that can cloud over errors that we see in that instant. All that work blends together, the good and the bad. We think it's all good. Just wait until your all done, that little error or mistake will show up like a beacon. And others will notice it also. You should pay attention to those brain cells that are working overtime to show you the errors of your ways.

A few more thoughts about spacing your brick grout lines. You do have a little bit of the fudge factor working in your favor, but not much. When you start at one end of a row with a quarter inch grout line and you try to fudge in half inch grout lines by the end its going be noticeable.

I teach using a pencil as my grout line distance, mostly because of the handy tool instead of trying to use a ruler. Sometimes you're grouting needs to be a tiny bit bigger or smaller which why I call it the fudge factor.

In the video I talk about a little trick for starting your lines in the middle of each course; which gives you a little wiggle room on each end with brick size.

Don't get too anxious about all this drawing and sizing of faux brick and drawing in level rows and half width bricks. If you have chosen to paint an entire faux brick wall you're pretty brave and after you finish this course about faux painting a brick wall you shouldn't have any problems.

Have patience while faux painting a brick wall…what do they say about building Rome?

You need to run up some vertical chalk lines for your fake brick walls. These are made with that funny string thingy I showed you in chapter 2. It's a piece of string, a weight and some blue chalk called a plumb line. You can buy this in a little kit for a little cash and it's very helpful in keeping your vertical lines straight and well…vertical. Or just use the big bubble level.

(If your not picky and think bricks look just fine a little off "plumb" then you will be saving a bunch of time.)

About every three feet run one of the lines down to keep things looking neat and even once you start drawing in your fake bricks.

Check your level every two or three courses of bricks. It's easy to get off level, because you will be leaving a little gap between each fake brick for the grout lines. This is why some like the stencil templates with 6 to 8 bricks in a stencil. The space for the grout lines are already laid out for you. Once you get the idea of using your fake brick wall template and having a gap for the grout you will get the wall "bricked" in no time.

Remember, you are just trying to get the basic fake brick wall drawn in and looking good. You aren't going to start to use any paint until you have the entire wall drawn and everything looks level, plumb and spaced in a pleasing manner.

Chapter 5 will teach you about running fake bricks around corners. These corners will be either inside or outside corners and need special measuring. When ending your courses of fake bricks on a wall of you don't want to go right up to the edge of a corner and not have a plan on ending that line.

If you have "real" bricks in the room that you are trying to match, you should take into consideration any patterns that the bricklayer used while running his brick courses or layers. Did he end his rows with exactly 1/2 brick off or was it 1/4 brick off? Having a consistent look in your room will help keep everything looking realistic. This is the time for taking into consideration all the variables and measure everything carefully using your watercolor pencil with your templates will make the work fast and easy. As long as you take your time with the planning, doing a fake brick wall can be fun and easy.

If your wall of fake bricks isn't going all the way up to the ceiling, say your bricks are going only 3/4 of the way up the wall they need to have some sort of cap or capstone. You would see this on top of any brick fence. Look to see if you like walls that are topped with half bricks, or bricks on an angle. Some walls might be topped with bricks on their sides. It's seems to be something scientific or psychological that the eye needs somewhere to land. When your eye sees a solid color and then the texture of painted brick, make sure to divide that space with something in the top row of bricks that looks like a wall cap or stopping point.

If the eye follows the grout lines to the top and doesn't have a place to stop, the viewer will be looking for a place to move his vision. This may seem trivial, but on a large wall of anything graphic, like brick and grout this is an important consideration. It can be very busy, like the old pop art posters of the '70's.

Next blog post will cover the next area of concern when painting fake brick on a wall. 

Excerpt from "The Beginners Guide to Professional Finishes: Faux Brick" a THAT Painter Lady Publication teaching Faux Finishes Bricks to Beginner Artists.