Q: Please help me. I'm on a tight budget for redecorating my family room but want to do more than just paint the walls a solid color. Do you have an idea for a paint treatment?A: Our decorative painter, Gary Lord, has a terrific idea that is quick and inexpensive. It's called Three-Color Parchment, and you can do it with any combination of colors you choose.
The technique involves blending two colors over top of a base color and then putting a glaze over the whole thing. We used woody yellow, reddish-brown and forest green and topped it all off with a glaze tinted to burnt umber. You can do this technique with lots of different colors.
1. Apply a base coat and let it dry. We used an acrylic paint in an eggshell finish, but you could also use latex paint. Acrylic is preferable as the base because paint applied on top of it dries more slowly, so you have more time to work with the new colors you'll be layering on.
2. Once the paint has dried, you can begin to work on the decorative technique. You'll always want to apply your darkest color first.
3. Using a 4" wide, 1" diameter roller and working in a small area (less than 2'x2'), apply a random-size pattern over 30 percent of the work area.
4. Wet a rag and wring it out well.
5. Pat the rag across the work area in a "hit-skip" pattern, blending out the colors so the entire work section is covered. Some of the paint will be darker than others -- this is what you want.
6. Repeat across all the walls.
7. Wait a few hours until the paint is completely dry. There will be lighter areas, medium areas and darker areas. You're going to work with each of those value areas in applying the next coat of paint.
8. With the same roller as before, and again working in small areas, roll the paint onto the lightest areas of the color you added over the base coat.
9. Begin blending the colors with the wet rag, just as you did before. You're trying to balance the composition between the light and dark areas.
10. Repeat throughout the room
11. Wait another couple hours while the second coat dries, and then it's time to glaze. We used a glaze that's been tinted so it's a burnt umber color.
12. Roll the glaze on the wall with a 9" roller with a 3/8" nap, working in 2' sections the entire height of the wall. Apply a thin but even coat of glaze.
13. Wad up a piece of cheesecloth and pat the finish.
14. Repeat throughout the room
This project is time-consuming because you have to layer on several different colors of paint. But it's fairly easy -- just remember to work in small areas and to blend your colors so that none of them is too light or too dark.
