Faux Pas - Step by Step Library Board (Part Two)
/
Relic Knights – Part two of my guide to building a Doctrine Library board is dealing with faux finishes. I want my tile to look like marble specifically a white and purple checkerboard pattern. In order to accomplish this I need to refer back to the painting lessons I taught at Home Depot while I was in college.
To make a fake marble pattern you need 3 colors of paint, a sponge and a feather (or in this case small brush) if you want to vein the marble.
Before you begin it's important to prime the board before you paint. I usually use a water based primer or a paint and primer all in one. Since I had a 2 gallon bucket of water based Kilz lying around I decided to use that first. When putting down your primer be sure to put a smooth even coat down and get into the grooves you carved previously. It you don't properly cover the foam you'll run into issues if you choose use any aerosol paint on the board.
After the primer has dried its time to paint. I'm going to start with the white tiles and paint the full board before going back to paint the purple tiles.
To easily get a marbling effect you take your three colors and put down a heavy stroke of each. Then take you sponge (or blending tool) and blend the color together. When done properly you should get a transition that resembles the large veins in marble. While this is still wet take your brush or feather and drag it across with you accent color to add the thin veins in the marble. I'm using a metallic gold.
Depending on the effect you want you could just stop now and have a marble floor. I would suggest at least doing a wash once it's dry to bring out the lines, essentially you're creating the grout lines. For me I want a checkerboard look so I need to paint the purple.
For the purple I want it to look like a different material so I'm not doing a marble effect. Instead I'm going to paint it in a jewel tone almost like amethyst.
