DECORATING PAINT EFFECTS
Paint effects introduce pattern to paint - the perfect medium if you are tired of plain walls but are not prepared to paper. Crafts such as - dragging, stenciling and trompe l'oeil have been part of the professional decorator's repertoire for centuries and now it is possible for amateurs to achieve the same effects, using traditional stumble glaze or paint alone.
Selecting a style
There is a paint effect to suit every setting. The luster of dragged walls and the watered silk appearance of rag-rolling have a formality which flatters traditional furnishings and provide a rich background for paintings and objects d' art. Sponging, stippling and ragging have a random broken color effect which gives depth to walls and suits a cottage or smaller home. It is al 0 a means of combining colors in a subtle way. More overtly decorative is stenciling, which was particularly popular in eighteenth-center America where a shortage of wood pulp limited the supply of wallpaper.
Used as a border in place of architectural features like a cornice or dado rail, in regular designs to resemble wallpaper, or in single motifs to decorate furniture, stenciling never fails to charm whether the style is simple and reminiscent of folk art, or an elaborate botanical or architectural design. Other paint effects were originally designed to imitate scarce or expensive natural materials. Marbling is perhaps the best known but malachite and tortoiseshell finish, bamboo and wood graining are all examples of this decorative sleight of hand.
As they need a fair degree of time and skill, these techniques are best reserved for decorative areas like table tops and chimney pieces. More elaborate still is trompe l'oeil whose convincing vistas and architectural effects are purely illusory. Still widely practiced in northern Italy where painted cornerstones, shutters and pediments adorn the simplest terraced house, this exuberant technique has become an art form.
LEFT Ragging is one of the simplest paint effects and needs only emulsion paint and a lint-free cloth. Experiment with different types such as cheesecloth, stockinet or mutton cloth, and with colors, ragging dark colors over light OI vice versa, or using two related colors on a contrasting background.
RIGHT Marbling has an abstract quality which suits contemporary furnishings as well as period styles. Here it is used as a fantasy finish which does not pretend to deceive the eye.
Panels, cornice and dado rail are all marbled to complete the effect.
BELOW Broken color finishes such as ragging and sponging add interest and depth to painted walls and provide a perfect background for stenciling. Here a single motif, which is quick and easy to stencil, has been repeated to create a border to define the dado and windows, thus emphasizing the room's symmetry. RIGHT Stenciling is more than a stand-in for wallpaper, it can also substitute for art and certainly adds interest. Small, self-contained areas are easiest to treat, which is why stencils are often used as borders or to decorate furniture. They are equally effective used in place of paintings or as trompe l'oeil ornaments.
DECORATING APPLYING PAINT EFFECTS Before applying a paint finish, prepare the surface and give it a suitable undercoat. Then apply the base coat. The decorative effect is then built up by adding one or more shades of top coat in either emulsion or oil- based paint. It is normally necessary to thin the top coats, and you may need to add an oil- based scumble glaze (rather like paint without any pigment - available from specialist stores) to make the top coats workable and translucent.
