Friday, March 7, 2008

What is a Faux Finish

If you have any experience in terms of buying a new home or in building one for yourself, you have realized one thing: raw materials are expensive! There is a reason why materials such as marble, hardwood, rare woods such as mahogany and even finer paints drive up the prices of homes exorbitantly: hey are very hard to get a hold of, and very pricey as well.

Expensive and rare materials are nothing new, when it comes to adding value to a home. The marble pillars you hear of in Rome were no less expensive then than now; it was the rich people that furnished their homes with this type of decoration. Some people even make the argument that back when people lived in caves, a false finish added to the home in the form of art would increase its value!

In essence, that is what a faux finish is: an addition to a home which makes it appear more desirable either through its emulation of a certain type of in demand material, or which adds a sense of originality.

In particular, faux finish refers to a type of paint applied to a structure, either inside or out, which gives the appearance of a certain material. There are several different types of paint, each representing a material.

They include:

Marble, which can be either plaster or glaze.
Graining, which impersonates rare and exotic expensive wood types.
Venetian plaster, which looks textured but is in fact quite smooth.

In addition to the different types of materials involved, different techniques are also applied in order to create certain faux finishes. The brush technique will determine how the paint is applied and the appearance it creates within a certain room or on a certain exterior. By combining the type of material with a specific technique, it is possible to create a faux finish that is entirely unique to one’s own home.

Besides giving a value added appearance, faux finishes can be incredibly fun to experiment with as well as to apply. Homeowners everywhere will be satisfied when they use this ancient technique to improve upon the appearance of their homes!

About Author:
Rob Parker - When looking for a premium faux painting instruction class you should keep in mind the number of students in the class and professional quality of the tools.

WallDreams Paint Ideas!
Clarifications in terms...
Faux Painting and Trompe L'Oeil are two terms used to describe painting techniques.
Trompe L'Oeil is a French term meaning to "trick the eye" referring to an art technique that is extremely realistic, with exact colors and shading creating an optical illusion of an object(s) to appear three dimensional. The look should be so realistic, that the viewer may have to reach out and try to touch it to see if it is real or not.
Faux Painting describes a wide range of decorative painting techniques that not only include stone, marble, wood, brick, slate, and metal but other materials such as linen, leather, burlap and denim. Faux is a French term as well, meaning "false" or "fake". By using paint and applying it to a surface, the artist can create the illusion of other materials and/or texture. A few other techniques including in Faux Painting are:
Distressing - giving the appearance of age and wear.
StriƩ - French word for "stripes" or "streaks", dragging through the glaze to create soft lines of color.
Crackle Finish - gives the look of aged paint with cracks intentionally created on the surface

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