Creating a colour wash - Part 1 - A wall wash

Creating a Colour Wash - Part 1 - A Wall Wash

Learning how to create a wash of colour is a really lovely technique to master when embarking on a journey into decorative painting. It's a brilliant way to give your work a more textured background and can help it sit nicely in a space. In this lesson, I'll show you how to apply it to a wall.

Colour Wash on Walls

When using the colour wash technique on walls, it creates a really lovely mottled effect - similar to the look of raw plaster or limewashed walls. The technique I'm showing you uses emulsion paint which is much more durable.

You Will Need:

• A surface to paint
• If you aren't going directly onto a wall, you might like to practise on a large piece of MDF that is covered in emulsion paint
• Filler and a sander as required
• Enough brilliant white paint for 3 coats
• Emulsion paint in a colour of your choice
• I am using Setting Plaster by Farrow & Ball in the Modern Emulsion finish
• Paint kettle
• Paint stick
• Water
• Scumble glaze if you want to
• At least 2 standard decorators brushes or Block brushes
• You need 1 for the wet wash and 1 to act as a softener brush

Step 1

It's very important to prep your walls first, as the wash will exaggerate any imperfections. Make sure any holes are filled, and you may need to give the wall a light sand to ensure it's completely smooth. Paint it with at least 3 coats of brilliant white to give yourself a fresh canvas to work on.

Step 2

To create your colour wash mixture, follow the ratio of 9 parts water to 1 part paint. To make your wash more durable, you can add Scumble Glaze into your paint at a 50/50 ratio. If you decide to do this, it will then be 8 parts water, 1 part paint and 1 part Scumble Glaze. Be wary that Scumble keeps your paint wet and open, so will take longer to dry between coats. Make your mixture in a paint kettle and mix with a paint stick.

Step 3

Dip your brush into your paint kettle and saturate it with your watery paint mixture. You don't want your brush to be full of water as it will drip down the wall, so tap the brush against the edge of the kettle to remove any excess.

Step 4

Working section by section and going from top to bottom, sweep the paint onto your surface with loose brushstrokes in a vaguely crisscross motion. Hold your brush lightly to keep the movement fluid.

Step 5

Once you've applied the paint using your wet brush, use your dry brush and go over the same section to blend and buff the paint strokes to soften the effect, keeping the motion loose and fluid. You are almost trying to stretch the paint around the surface.

Step 6

Keep working across the wall in sections like this, using your wet brush first to apply the paint and your dry brush in tandem to blend. When using your dry brush, focus particularly on softening and blending the areas where sections overlap as you want to avoid creating any areas that are too dark.

Step 7

When the entire area is covered, your first coat is complete. Wait for this to dry before adding any additional coats. The amount of coats depends on the effect and texture you want to achieve.