Faux painting refers to a variety of decorative finishes that can be applied to walls, including sponging, rag rolling, stippling and dragging to enhance their beauty. Faux in French means false and not genuine. From the Egyptian Pharaohs to the ancient Greeks and Romans - a variety of techniques have been employed by people to enhance living spaces.
History of Faux Painting
In the Middle Ages Europe saw the development of painting techniques, which mirrored the spirituality of the age and also the courtly life, these themes found face in spectacular frescos. Binders, such as gums and resins, were used with paint and palette, offering increasingly diverse methods for decorative painting.
The development of materials continued into the Renaissance, and began to include pigments derived from a variety of chemical substances. This era offers us some of the most spectacular frescos and trompe l'oeil masterpieces that mark the continual evolution of use of chemicals in Faux Painting.
Trompe l'oeil
Trompe l'oeil is French term literally meaning "trick the eye." Sometimes called illusionism, it's Faux Painting technique, which gives the appearance of three-dimensional, or photographic realism. It flourished from the Renaissance onward. The discovery of linear perspective in fifteenth-century Italy and advancements in the science of optics in the seventeenth-century Netherlands enabled artists to render object and spaces with eye-fooling exactitude. Both playful and intellectually serious, trompe artists toy with spectators' seeing to raise questions about the nature of art and perception.
Techniques of Faux Painting
Faux decorative painting techniques are often unobservable to the untrained eye. Stippling, Ragging and Stenciling are some of the most popular faux techniques used today.
Ragging & Stippling
In these techniques, paint is applied on surfaces and are then manipulated with a brush or a newspaper
One has to ensure that paint is only applied to well cleaned and primered surfaces. A surface painted with two coats of latex primer is ideal. One can use a water-based glaze, but for a more professional finish oil-based mixtures are preferable.
The Primary reason of the popularity of Faux Painting is the increased interest of people in creating their own environments. Home decorating, for example, is no longer the domain of professionals. People today are increasingly interested in 'do-it-yourself' projects, and decorative painting offers incredible ease and variety of options for anyone willing to learn.
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