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.