PAINT AND DECORATE
A site devoted to Painting and Decorating Techniques
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SPECIALIST DECORATOR
Hand painted signs, furniture and murals.
INDEX OF PAGES
How to create decorative techniques:-
Answers to Your Questions:-
Students Work:-
HOW
TO CREATE DECORATIVE TECHNIQUES
BELGIUM RED
Belgium Red, as its name
implies, is quarried in an area on the border of southern Belgium. It has
been used as a decorative wall cladding for many years and extensively in
Victorian times. I would think, by now, the quarries are almost extinct.
You will find this marble
in many Town Halls and stately homes up and down the country. It is very
strong in colour with lots of Indian Red and Sienna mixed together with
open patches of gray to white. The open patches are outlined with dark
gray or black lines and a white vein running independently across the face
of the marble.
First
attempts at imitating this marble will produce similar shapes and sizes
but with practice and growing experience, shapes that are more
recognizable as Belgium Red will be achieved.
TOOLS
REQUIRED
Several
hog’s hair fitches of which one should be a No. 8 Flat.
MATERIALS
Oil
based white eggshell.
The
ground coat must be a hard white eggshell finish without brush marks, nibs
or any undulations in the surface.
To
initiate any natural material the student must first acquire the skill of
copying. But just to copy is not what it is all about. The student
throughout the many hours of practice will acquire an inner sense, a
feeling for the material. This brings us to the most important aspect of
imitating marble and that is the sense of depth, which gives marble its
beauty and wonder. It is depth, a three dimensional appearance on a two
dimensional surface that is paramount.
First
with a piece of lint free rag about 300 mm square soaked in gilp (Gilp -
Two parts refined raw linseed oil and one part turpentine with about 10%
to 20% of the oil content in terebine dryers).
Wipe over the surface to produce a thin coating.
The
colours must first be mixed and checked against the sample of real marble
that is being copied. Enough colour should be mixed to complete the work,
if this is a large wall area then the colour can be kept in containers
with lids.
For
practice purposes a small amount can be mixed on a palette board.
The
surface must now be `clouded in`
with a mixture of Raw Sienna, Indian Red and gilp.
The
colour, mixed roughly between Sienna, Indian Red and Black, is
painted on the surface with a fitch leaving some areas to allow the white
base to show through. This is then mottled with a lint free cotton rag and
softened.
Take
up the veining horn and rap it in a cotton rag. With both hands in play
drag the rag with the horn through the colour creating veins and opened
out areas. Soften if necessary. Paint around, but not too uniformed, the
opened out areas and some of the veined markings with a mixture of
gray/black. Soften all areas making shore there are no obvious brush
marks.
When
dry the surface must be protected with at least two coats of pale or white
varnish.
