DRAWING & PAINTING FAUX BRICKS (TROMPE L'OEIL) & TUTORIAL

(Yesterday, I posted this on my decorative artisan blog.  Today, I was thinking my tutorial could work for gardening, too.  You could paint faux bricks on any wall or back plate for your garden.  If you do paint faux bricks outside, it might be best to use exterior paint.  Those tiny bottles of acrylics that you get at Michaels and Hobby Lobby would work well outside, too.)

The last few weeks, I've been working for a builder who is building a New Orleans style house for a client.  He had one area and just couldn't figure out what to do with it.

Finally, he had an idea and called me and asked if I could paint faux bricks for him in this area.  

So, I did paint faux/trompe l'oeil bricks for him.

Here are the three walls with bricks.  Can you tell which two walls are real and the one that I painted?

Ok, which one?

Alright, I'm sure you guessed it.  The butler's pantry was very plain and the builder wanted me to paint the faux bricks to blend with the other two walls.  When you're standing in certain areas in the big living room, you can see all three brick walls at the same time.  So, it was important to make them look the same.

I'm very happy with the way they turned out.  Everybody was saying, "oh, that looks good, you did it" and that made me feel good.

The builder helped me with critiquing the grout lines and together, we did it!!

Oh, and earlier I painted a special finish on the cabinets in the kitchen and butler's pantry.

TUTORIAL

First, I used dry spackling and, with a broad knife and my finger I lightly textured the area.  Then, I picked out colors to match the existing brick and mortar colors.  I painted over the whole area the grayish grout color. When that dried, I used my brick stencil to get the structure going.  Next, I used a regular brush to stencil the orange brick base coat.  Then, a brush to paint and a rag to rub out an off white, raw umber and black.  It took a while to work on each brick and make them different from each other.  Last, I went back with a brush and painted wider grout lines and wiped it with a rag and smudged out areas on each brick to match the existing real brick walls.

At the very bottom and at the very top, I had to make my own bricks, because the stencil wouldn't fit in those spots.  But, the bricks are so uneven, it's very simple to do.  And, in the corners, I lightly brushed some raw umber, just so it shadowed a little bit.  Making it look a little more three dimensional.

I think anyone could do this.  

You could paint the wall behind your fireplace, under your kitchen cabinets. a mud room or any place you wish you had bricks.  And, you can use any color.

Have fun!!