Finer than Faux and Flawless! Decorating
With Wallpaper
(ARA) - No wonder faux finishing is a popular look for walls.
Anyone who has visited a decorator showhouse or a home in
which the walls have been artfully completed by a master painter
can hardly help but be impressed with the stunning effect
these techniques impart. However, the notion that they are
easy to achieve by anyone who picks up a paint brush every
six or seven years, is wishful thinking.
Faux finishing with paint is far from simple. It inevitably
takes at least three coats of different colors of paint and
can take as many as nine or 10, layered in different directions
with alternating series of strokes made by a variety of different
tools, including brushes, combs, sponges, rags and even trowels.
Paint -- good paint, which is essential in faux finishing
-- is no longer inexpensive.
Furthermore, the faux finishing process often calls for wiping
some paint applications off the surface before the paint dries
in a pattern so disciplined that it looks random. Once a pattern
of these so-called random swipes, marble-like veins, or antiqued
rubbed looks is determined, the painter must measure the entire
surface to make sure "repeats" of this pattern don't
collide or come to an abrupt halt at corners.
"Faux" means "fake." Disguise is the
objective of faux finishing. Failure to take pattern repeats
and scale into account unmasks the disguise and reveals that
the surface treatment is, indeed, fake.
Even for professionals, achieving a successfully painted
faux finish is a tedious process. Yet, a master painter, working
for a high hourly rate, can be reasonably assured of accomplishing
the desired outcome. Not so, the novice.
Arms tire; eyes glaze. Strokes that came easy and were consistent
on the first wall become stiff and controlled as the process
is repeated around the room. The perspective changes when
the technique is carried to the ceiling, which creates further
deterioration of consistency.
For anyone, novice or pro, wallpaper is the simpler, faster,
less expensive faux finishing option. Measuring for random
repeats, determination of appropriate scale, layering, and
selection of coordinating colors and hues, have already been
done for you by professional artists and designers.
What's more, you can see the result before it is applied
to your wall. By browsing through wallpaper books, you can
compare alternative patterns and techniques before spending
a dime. Such browsing will also show you that faux finish
wallpaper patterns offer a far wider range of surface-treatment
options than faux painting, and some carry embellishments
unobtainable with paint.
Just four of the many faux finish patterns in collections
by S.A. Maxwell Co. prove the point. Two very different ones
are in the Antiquities collection by Maxwell's LV Emmert Studio
division. One combines the patina of aged paint with a soft-edged
harlequin pattern, rendered in a rich blend of browns mixed
with shades of ochre. The sophisticated harlequin design is
timeless and especially useful in kitchens, where it brings
consistency to the many surfaces that are visually interrupted
by cabinets and appliances.
Another pattern in Antiquities replicates the rustic look
of an ancient, distressed stone wall that might be found in
a Tuscan garden. It seems to reveal the vestiges of multiple
layers of paint, applied over centuries, and worn by time
and weather.
Seemingly random swathes of thick, newly applied plaster
give a contemporary faux finish look to a pattern in The First
Class Male collection from Maxwell's Piper Designs division.
Like rich swabs of gouache on a modern painting, this pattern
has subtle contrasts of light and shadow. When this type of
finish is applied with thick paint and a trowel, its later
removal calls for sanding -- an expensive, tedious and messy
process. By contrast, the wallpapered pattern can be removed
easily to make way for different fashionable wallpaper in
the future.
A pattern of crackled and aged paint in the LV Emmert Vintage
Tuscany collection is overlaid with faded script, the remnants
of a now barely discernable ancient message once written on
the wall. Details, such as this script or sketched musical
notes, which are layered on another faux finish in the Vintage
Tuscany collection, take the look of painterly faux techniques
to their most sophisticated and elegant level.
Faux finish pattern wallpapers bring walls to life, making
the surface more interesting the more the eye observes it.
To find the nearest retailer carrying Antiquities, which
will be released in September, Vintage Tuscany, and First
Class Male, and to browse even more of the fabulous faux finish
wallpapers in collections by S.A. Maxwell, call (847) 932-3700
or visit www.samaxwell.com.
Courtesy of ARA Content, by Jaima Brown
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jaima Brown is director of design for S.A.
Maxwell Co., a leading producer of wallpaper, borders and
coordinating fabric.
