
Learn the tools, mediums, colors, and methods of decorative painting, create beautiful finishes, think independently, and build a creative career as a decorative artisan.
Explore decorative painting and faux finishing, defining terms like ground, broken color, translucency, opacity, mottling, scumbling, glaze manipulation, and role of tools and materials such as acrylic and alkyd paints.
Prepare surfaces by patching, sanding, and priming, then apply a base coat before glazing for translucent color. Select the right sheen, use cutting-in and painter's tape, and clean tools well.
Choose and use decorative painting tools for glaze application, including a four inch roller, brushes, rags, cheesecloth, kraft paper, wallpaper smoother, and sea sponges, to achieve even, textured finishes.
Discover the true glaze and its three properties—transparent when dry, slow working time, and durability—and how to tint with universal tints, extend, or varnish for durability.
Explore positive decorative painting techniques using fast-drying glaze tinted with colored latex and sealed with a dead flat clear topcoat to add depth and movement to faux finishing.
Explore scumbling, a rag-manipulated glaze using a four-to-one dead flat topcoat to colored latex paint for translucency, with wet rag rolling and dabbed excess, drying 1-2 hours between coats.
Mottling with sea sponges to apply and manipulate glaze, using damp sponges, tamp off excess, avoid repeats, and apply multiple glaze coats for a complex, organic finish.
Explore negative painting with a slow-drying glaze rolled on, then manipulated and removed for texture, using a 4:1 extender-to-paint mix, ceiling masking, and section-by-section work.
Explore frottage with paper to create a distressed plaster look and hide wall flaws, using a satin glaze and craft paper for a seamless finish.
Master scumbling, a broken color glaze using lint-free rags on surface, with a 4:1 to 6:1 extender-to-paint mix, applied in 4x4 sections and rag off, dries 12 to 24 hours.
Apply a base coat and blend two glazes to achieve color washing, a negative broken color technique that yields subtle wall movement without texture.
Master the strié dragging technique, negative broken color with faint vertical lines and a textile look, by applying glaze in sections using a wallpaper smoother to maintain a wet edge.
Learn to create a linen look with a horizontal dragging brush using a glaze and a crosshatched technique, including sectioning, careful taping, and curing guidance for a realistic, durable finish.
Learn how to finish decorative paintings using glaze techniques, varnish, and durable, scrubbable surfaces, with guidance on curing times and cleaning, top coats, and matching samples.
Scan the room to guide color choices from objects the homeowner loves. Create glaze-based samples and build color schemes from items like a rolling pin or book cover.
Decorative Painting has been around for centuries - ancient civilizations were already decorating their interiors and exteriors beautifully and durably. The term ‘decorative painting’ essentially means employing a paint technique to change a plain surface into one with color, depth, and movement, and it’s a skill set that continues to this day. You can learn the foundation techniques required to begin and expand upon your decorative artisan career. There are a few factors to consider for learning about decorative painting and faux finishing. You may be wondering:
How do I even begin knowing what a decorative painter does?
What products and tools do I need?
What are the basic finishes I can easily learn?
How do I mix colors and glazes to make finishes?
And most of all....how can I learn these skills easily and affordably?
The ability to use paints, acrylics, and glazes is a great tool to help build your creative portfolio. They can be used on their own, however, more often than not, these foundation finishes are used as the building blocks to create layered finishes, faux organic materials, murals, and more. Knowing the basics allows a decorative artisan to work confidently with private clients, interior designers, and commercial clients.
Lori Le Mare shares the foundations with you from her 35 years of experience in the fields of decorative painting, faux finishing, and the restoration of heritage painted finishes. Lori has earned a solid reputation as a master artisan, and is now teaching her foundation series and easy to learn finishes, step by step, right from her studio in Ontario, Canada. Her goal is to make you a decorative artisan.
Here's what we'll cover.
By the end of this Foundation Series course, students will know the basics of being a decorative painter. You’ll learn about the tools, mediums, colors, and methods involved in creating decorative and faux painted finishes, as well as how to manipulate these to get beautiful results. You’ll learn how to make a coloured glaze and how to layer the glazes to create depth and variation in colour. You’ll learn how to create movement in these glazes by utilizing transparency and opacity. You’ll be able to understand the language and know the processes so that you can think for yourself and problem solve by not being beholden to formulas and recipes. You can use this knowledge as a springboard for your imagination, enabling you to create your own finishes by expanding on these basic techniques.