8 More Mistakes To Avoid When Faux Painting

How to Paint Just About Anything

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If you are embarking on your first faux painting project, then it’s worth ensuring that you’ve mastered the essentials.

Beginners may make some errors that prevent them from attaining the effect that they’re looking for.  Here are a few tips that will help you in the process:

1. Good materials produce good results. Buy the right paints and brushes and make sure your painting surface is well prepared. Painting onto flat paint is almost a guarantee of failure.

To ensure a good result, use a satin or eggshell paint as your base layer. Flat paint inhibits the slow drying that faux painting requires and somehow creates a dull finish. A base coat that dries slowly will also give you time to fix mistakes.

2. You may be tempted by artist’s palettes and specially designed sponges and applicators. Save your money for good paints and brushes. Gadgets and special tools aren’t necessary. A soft sponge sold for household cleaning will do for applying color washes and an ice cube tray doubles as a practical paint palette.

Don’t waste that paint! You can always stick it in the freezer rather than letting it harden. Another money-saving tip is to use dishwashing liquid for cleaning brushes. You can buy fancy cleaners but a grease-cutting dishwashing liquid works just fine with water-based paints and with stencil creams, which are partially oil-based.

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. Keep oil and water-based paints separate at all costs. Knowing the ingredients of your paints can save you from catastrophe. For example, don’t assume that latex paint is an oil paint. It is partly water and so will not mix with oil paint.

5. Dirty Brushes can spell disaster. Brushes that haven’t been properly cleaned are a key cause of problems, including color contamination. There’s a middle way between casual rinsing of your brushes and splurging on expensive custom cleaning products.

In your local art store look for cleaning pads in the children’s section. The same item targeted at professional artists will cost you a lot more.

6. Paint is designed to spread and spread it will - on shoes and in many other ways too. Accidents do happen, but there are ways of dealing with them.

Using water or chemical cleaners on carpets is not advisable, since at best it can spread the paint further. You can try trimming the stain with nail scissors when it has dried. If the worst comes to the worst, a product called Goof Off is a useful remedy.

7. Wet and dry don’t mix. If you’re using glazes you need to make sure that you’re not creating areas where wet paint meets dry edges. The dry paint won’t spread at the meeting point and the join will show. Plan to paint areas in one session, without a break.

That includes, telephone, tea and toilet breaks. The hotter the weather the faster you will need to work before areas of glaze dries.

8. You may not recognize your painting style, but everyone has their own unique technique. That’s why collaborative efforts don’t work.

People can work together as long as they work on different layers or walls, not different sections of the same layer/wall. Your style can even change during a day: pre- and post-lunch. Plan your sessions and breaks to maximize uniformity in technique.

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Tagged as: faux painting mistakes, fix faux painting