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Project Difficulty:
Easy
Estimated
Project Time: A few hours, depending on the scope of the treatment
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Paint buckets and a paint tray
Mixing sticks
3" wide decorator brush
Stippling brush
Paint roller with a low nap or foam cover
Clean rags
Mineral spirits
Gloves
Base Coat:
Flat latex paint
Glaze Colorant:
Custom-mixed flat, eggshell, or satin alkyd paint, universal tints, or artist's oil colors. Note that sheened paint will cause a shine in the final finish.
Glaze Formula:
1 part colorant, 1 part alkyd glazing medium, and 1 part mineral spirits
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Clear Top Coat:
Optional
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No, it can't be. You've just painted the den with the best paint money could buy, custom-mixed to "Sophisticated Seaweed," a subtle, traditional green so elegant on the swatch in the store. But up close and personal, the color's a nightmare, casting a thick, sickly green glow on everything, including you (Fig. 1). No worries--stippling can help!
A finish that works well on non-porous surfaces, stippling is a great way to mellow out strong colors while enriching them with texture. With stippling, you can actually use that wild seaweed base coat to the room's advantage. First, you'd cover it (once dry) with glaze--for example, a dark green glaze tinted with raw umber. Then you'd work the wet glaze in two stages: first in rough brush strokes, and then in a fine stippling motion, as explained below. The results will prove that this simple technique can easily create a lovely, subtle finish even with regrettably ugly paint (Fig. 2).
For a sophisticated effect, try using stippling to blend and grade together several colors or diverse shades of one color. Begin by first applying a different color to opposite ends of a surface, leaving a small area between them uncoated. Then, starting from each end with a cloth, softly work the glazes toward the center until they overlap. Refine the finish with the stipple brush, blending the colors well enough so that it's impossible to tell where one color ends and the other begins.
Note that the more you stipple a surface, the lighter the color of the finish and the more fine-grained the texture becomes.
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1.
Apply Glaze
Let the base coat dry. Mix the oil glaze to the desired color and thickness, and pour a small amount into a paint tray. Smoothly lay the glaze onto the first section using a roller.
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2.
Rough Stipple
Gripping the handle of a large, flat decorator brush, immediately and quickly rough-stipple over the entire section using a vigorous, straight up-and-down pouncing stroke. This pushes the glaze into tiny dots. Clean the brush frequently as you work (Fig. 3).
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3.
Fine Stipple
For a fine stipple, work from side to side, pouncing a stippling brush over the entire surface and overlapping strokes as you go (Fig. 4). To avoid creating a recognizable pattern, move your hand from side to side and rotate the brush just before you make each stroke. Remember to clean the brush frequently.
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