Tuesday Tip of the Day - Walk it In

Ever wonder why glazed walls sometimes have very obvious places where the sections meet up?  That's because the artist didn't walk in their glaze!

First and most important is to start in a corner and always work from the top down.  That way any drips or missteps can be adjusted as you go.  Pull your glaze out from the corner in a diagonal -- never work in square or rectangular sections with glaze!

Now let's say for example you're doing a simple mottled glaze on a wall.  Tools you need would be:

• Tape to protect the areas you don't want glazed
• A bucket to mix your glaze
• A large foam brush to apply the glaze
• A pouncer brush to soften out edges of each section and get into corners
• A wrap of cheesecloth to push glaze around as well as remove some from the wall

That's it!

I apply the tinted glaze with a foam brush in random, flailing, swirly patterns.  This leaves more glaze in some spots than others and will help to distribute correctly when softening.  It may sound strange but some areas of the wall should be left without glaze on them.  Why?  Because the cheesecloth and pouncer brush will help you walk glaze into those areas.  Now I'm not talking big sections of wall, I mean within the spot where you're applying with the foam brush, random spots can be blank within your swirly.

So you swirl and splat and flail glaze about the wall and now you've softened and mottled to your liking with cheesecloth and a pouncer.  How do you make it meet up without it looking like a big overlap line from glaze hell?

This is where the term walk it in comes into play.

Do not overlap the wet edge of the previous section with your new flailing glaze, just come close to it.  Then with the cheesecloth or pouncer pretend the glaze is taking a "walk" into the other glaze through your hand motion.  It helps to feather off the thickness and leave you with less visible join lines.

Work all the way across the wall from top to bottom in diagonal sections and voila, a mottled wall with soft join lines that are all but imperceptible!

And just a little side tip regarding cheesecloth -- the first few passes with new cloths will take off a lot of glaze so I usually reserve the newest for the center of each section.  But don't over saturate it either or it won't be doing its job!  When it looks more the color of your glaze than the white it started out as, its time for new pieces.

Friday's featured #faux finish is going to be so much fun, I'll be showcasing the #mural I completed on top of the blended glaze from last week's Friday feature!  Hope to see you back here for that!