Faux Brick Painting

Hi Debra,

Got your faux brick paintng info and have drawn in all my bricks (not painted yet). My vision is for my 14 year old “skate boarder” son and I am faux bricking in two whole walls and the other two walls I had wanted to look like plain concrete. Any advice on the concrete look? I wanted a light grey (not
to be the same as my grout), but I know that concrete has tiny lines from smoothing it out. How can I get this look?

Thanks,

Angie
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Hi Angie,

What a cool idea for a teenage boy who loves to skate board! You go girl!

I’m not sure exactly what you mean about “tiny lines” in the concrete. I know you said lines that come from smoothing it out… so I’ll take a
guess.

First. The grey wall should not be a solid grey. It needs to be mottled or aged a bit to look like real concrete. You could do a slight aging or
go all the way and give it a real underground tunnel aging with water drips etc.

You might even let your son “tag” the wall with spray paint. As long as he promises to never do it anywhere else.

For lines… you need to paint on lines. Now I know that sounds simplified… but sometimes I like to be very clear.

Tiny lines require a tiny paint brush and watered down paint. You would take the grey color of the wall and add some black to make a darker shadow color. The tool is a paint brush called a liner brush. It has hair that is about an inch long and you use it like a wand not a pen. What I mean is you must hold the brush vertical and very loosely allow the brush to drag down the wall in angle while wiggling it slightly.

It is very hard to teach this technique with just words. But… I tried.

Let me know if I can answer anything else for you. Good Luck!

Debra

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As for the tagging, we already agreed to do that! He can’t wait.

As for the concrete look, when they smooth the concrete, sometimes you can see almost brush lines. If I did this with one brush it might take forever, it is a solid wall! I was thinking that if I take your advice with adding dark to the paint and watering it down I could get like a wallpaper glue brush (long/wide) and go straight down the walls it might look like the faint lines in smoothed concrete? What do you think?

Thanks again,
Angie

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Perfect idea. This should add some interest to the wall.

But don’t get too freaked out about making it perfect. After he does the tagging, that will be the real eye catcher. The faint lines will just add the right amount of texture.

Give it a try and let me know how it works.

Love to see pictures!
Debra

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UPDATE!

Angie Sent Pictures!

Finally finished my son’s room! I had a huge project on my hands…two whole walls of bricks!! Now I know why you do “knock outs”! Well, after many hours, it turned out fantastic and everyone can’t believe how 3 dimensional it looks! The other walls are supposed to be concrete, and I am going to graffiti that as soon as I hang everything on the walls then graffiti around them.

Thanks again!

Angie

 This letter had me confused for a while. I could not figure out why the writer wanted warm stone. Then, I finally figured out that it was a typo and she wanted to know who to make the faux stone look worn and rustic.

Hi Debra.
I’m turning a pillar wall into a stone column. I just textured it with joint compound and I will faux it to look like stone in the morning.
If you have any tips on how to make it really look like warm stone, please let me know. I’m not faux brick painting.
I appreciate all of your advice.
I hope to have a faux painting and mural business up and running soon, here in the east valley of Phoenix.
Thanks again

First… let’s address the warn faux stone. With the texture you have added, this will be easy. After you have painted the walls with the faux block, and you are happy with the way they look, you need to sand or chip back some of the texture.

Then apply a darker color to those broken areas to make them look very broken and worn.

Next… congrats on starting your new business. Make sure you visit these two sites to get information about starting and maintaining a new faux painting business:

www.fauxpaintingforprofit.com

www.twopaintersinapod.comÂ

This request for help is long overdue… I wanted to do the technique of faux moss on bricks and take pictures. Isn’t always better to have visual aids? Of course the mossing technique only took a few minutes, but uploading photos is always on the bottom of the list in my daily projects.

Thanks for your patience Kem… I hope this tutorial is helpful.

 

Dear Debra,

I recently purchased your class on faux bricks. The bricks came out great. I would like to add some moss around the perimeter of the bricks. If you have any suggestions, I would appreciate it.

Thank you,

kem Hubbell

 

A. Before Moss

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

B. Paint Colors Used

Folkart : Hauser Green Med.

Folkart: Hauser Green Dark

Americana: True Ochre

White and Black

 

 

 

C. Brush in a “mottling” of 3 top colors in the areas you want the dense moss.

 

 

 

 

 

D. The key to good faux moss is texture. Using a small portion of a sea sponge with lots of little “tips” is very helpful. I dipped just the tips into paints and tapped over mossed in areas.

 

 

E. You can see that the sponged areas are over and outside the area originally based in. This gives the impression that the moss is growing.

 

 

 

 

 

F. Now you can see that the white and black were used again to define the bricks and breakouts so the dimension is not lost.

 That all for this tutorial. If I helped you learn something new, why don’t you leave a comment below. It will be fun to talk about your experiences on this open forum!

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