Swan Studios Mural and Faux Finish Adventures: Going Dark to See the Light

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Going Dark to See the Light

“In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present”- Sir Francis Bacon

The juxtaposition between light and dark is a common theme in throughout our literature, movies, and Biblical stories. Typically, Light symbolizes hope, love, and purity. Meanwhile Darkness symbolizes fear or evil. In today’s illustration, however, it is quite literally “You can only appreciate the Light when Darkness is present”.

The faux finish request was for a German Schmear over brick. German Schmear is a beautiful classic aged effect over bricks. It’s a step beyond using whitewash on bricks. Instead of diluted white paint, a layer of wet mortar is applied. Areas can be skipped to expose some of the bricks or the mortar can be knocked back. The home exterior had been painted a pale grey. The pale grey had even been painted over the front brick façade. Since removing paint out of brick is not exactly the easiest thing in the world. In fact, it’s down right grueling. Furthermore, the idea was to go with a grey scheme. But the beauty of the mortar wash wouldn’t show well on the solid pale grey paint. I opted to faux paint the brick area as dark grey bricks. I used 5 various shades ranging from medium to black. Then the mortar was applied. The result is delightful! A gorgeous classic finish in today’s sought- after grey color scheme.