We tend to think of wallpaper simply as a printed design in color. A visit to the Valley Craftsman studio in Baltimore, Maryland, introduces us to dimensional wallpaper -- wall covering that is embossed to make it three-dimensional, applied to a wall and then finished with decorative painting techniques. Decorative painter Kate Hickey demonstrates three different finishing techniques that bring embossed papers to life: rubbed-glaze finish, hand-painting and gold-leaf application. Rubbed-Glaze Finish Materials:
Glazing liquid
Antiquing liquid
Small paintbrush
Large paintbrush
Clean rags - To prepare the surface for glazing, hang wallpaper, apply one coat of paint and let dry.
- Brush the runny glaze on the embossed surface with a paintbrush, applying enough to fill all the crevices in the design.
- Squeeze a rag into a messy ball with no flat edges, and gently press it against the glazed surface to remove the excess.
- Carefully run a clean section of the rag along the raised areas to reveal more of the embossed surface. Try not to remove any glaze from the flat spots.
- Brush the same glaze over the painted portions of the wall as well, and remove the excess by dragging a dry brush over the surface. Let dry.
- Apply antiquing glaze with a big brush, and press a clean, balled-up rag on the surface to blend the glaze and remove the excess.
Hand-Painted Finish Using this finishing method, you can hand-paint an entire wall of embossed wallpaper -- a technique that's easily explained but can take weeks. Materials:
Accent paint colors
Small paintbrush - Hang wallpaper. Apply a base coat of paint and let dry.
- Use a small brush to hand-paint chosen elements of the embossed surface.
Gold-Leaf Finish This rich gold-leaf finish for an embossed wall or ceiling is made affordable with the use of composition-metal gold leaf, which contains no gold. Materials:
Composition-metal gold leaf, available in 5" x 5" sheets
Sizing (the glue used to bond the gold leaf to the wallpaper)
Small paintbrush
Rags
- Hang wallpaper. Apply a base coat of paint and let dry. The deep brick red used as a base coat in this example replicates the red-clay color of historical wall coverings.
- Apply a coat of sizing to the entire surface.
- Carefully roll a sheet of gold leaf onto the painted surface (figure A). Continue, sheet after sheet, covering the whole wall.
- Use a paintbrush to brush and tap the gold leaf into the crevices of the embossed surface (figure B). Tiny flakes of gold leaf will crack loose as it is tapped into the surface.
- Carefully rub the gold-leafed surface with a rag, breaking through the gold leaf and rubbing off a bit of the gold to reveal the base coat underneath (figure C ).
RESOURCES :
Lincrusta three-dimensional wallpaper
Crown Corporation
Lincolnwood, IL 60646
Sam Robinson and Kate Hickey, decorative painters
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