An Introduction to Decorative Painting

During this part of the course, Tess takes you through the exact equipment and tools she uses in her decorative painting. She suggests what you will need to begin your journey, and where to source each item from.

After taking you through the different types of brushes and sponges, Tess moves on to the more specialised equipment required in each project.

It’s incredibly important to prepare the surface of your walls and furniture before you begin painting them to get the best results. Tess explains what you need to use to do this, as well as the types of paint she recommends to use in your own projects.

You can decoratively paint almost anything, and the techniques you will learn in this course can be applied to so many different projects. Here are just a few ideas to get you started.

In decorative painting, there are a few fundamental mark-making techniques that are well worth practising and getting the hang of when first starting. Follow along with Tess as she demonstrates what they are.

Patterns are central to decorative painting, so it’s very good practice to make a conscious effort to start noticing and observing the different patterns all around you. Tess suggests where to look and encourages you to seek inspiration from your everyday surroundings.

In this lesson, Tess shows you how to paint some of the staple motifs that she uses a lot in her work. These can be combined with the foundational techniques you've already learnt to create more intricate and interesting patterns.

Tess demonstrates how to elevate your decorative painting even further with a tutorial dedicated to leaf and petal motifs.

Now that you’ve learnt and practised some different motifs, follow along with Tess as she shows you how to combine them into a pattern and create an artwork of a painted flower garland.

This lesson is all about stencilling, which is a great way to create a neat, repeat pattern on both a small and large scale. It can be a really time-saving method of decorating and combines with hand painting to beautiful effect.

Another technique to add to your arsenal, Tess shows you how she works with tape and templates in her work through the case study of a circus-inspired mural. It's a particularly helpful method to use when creating more structured designs such as a geometric border.

Learning how to create a wash of colour is a really lovely technique to master when embarking on a journey into decorative painting. On a wall, it mimics the look of raw natural plaster and gives the perfect backdrop to a mural.

A colour wash can also be applied to furniture as a beautiful base for your decorative painting, and Tess demonstrates how to do it effectively.

Colour is a hugely important part of decorative painting, but creating a palette of cohesive colours can feel daunting. In this lesson, Tess shows you where to start, and how to build up a range of colours that work well together. She encourages you to find the confidence to seek out the colours that stir joy within you, as well as showing you how to use them in your schemes

Before moving on to the projects within the course, Tess gives an important preparatory lesson about how to plan your design and test out your different ideas.

In this part of the course, you’ll be going through a few projects with Tess step-by-step so you can start to put what you have learnt so far into practice. The first is decorating a lampshade.

Follow along with Tess as she demonstrates how to plan the design for a lampshade using a practice panel.

With your design finalised, it’s time to start thinking about how exactly you will translate this onto your lampshade.

With all the designing and planning complete, it’s finally time to paint your lampshade!

For your next project together, Tess will be showing you how to paint a mirror frame. The principles you’ll learn can be applied to painting a border on a wall and around a window or door frame.

When decorating narrow surfaces, it can take time to get the proportion right as well as the pattern repeats even - and Tess shows you how.

Your third project is painting a large piece of furniture. With the stakes slightly higher, Tess goes through the additional preparatory steps she takes when designing something of this scale.

This stage is all about developing your design, and Tess teaches you how to create a mock-up to gain a better understanding of how each motif and pattern will sit together in the wider composition.

To avoid costly mistakes, you'll learn how to create and use a practice panel - something Tess always uses in her decorative painting work.

Now it's time to put everything you've learnt into practice and begin painting your piece of furniture.

For your final project together, you will be learning how to create your own hand-painted wall mural. Tess takes you through how she approached a recent mural project as a practical case study.

Just as with the furniture painting project, the next stage in the process is to think about how your composition will come together and to create your mock-up.

Follow along with Tess as she creates the practice panel for her project, and offers tips on how you might use yours when approaching your own mural.

In the final lesson, you will join Tess on site as works on her mural in the eaves of a timber frame barn. Observe her process, and paint along with her on your own project.