Chalk Paint Dry Brush Technique--Creating a Multi-Colored Blended Finish on Furniture
Have you ever seen a beautiful multi-colored painted finish on furniture and wondered how it was achieved? It may have been painted with a "Dry Brush" technique. Dry brushing furniture can add dimension and a textured appearance by layering and blending multiple colors on a solid painted surface. It can also mimic the look of layered distressing on a painted furniture piece. Or dry brushing a single light color on unfinished or stained wood can create a shabby chic, weathered, or aged look. For this article I will cover the basics of multi-colored dry brush layering on a solid painted surface; but, the tools and basic techniques for applying dry brushed paint are the same for all applications.
Dry brushed furniture is achieved by transferring small amounts of chalk paint from a "dry brush" to the furniture surface, applying a very light layer of paint, allowing the wood grain or colors underneath to show through. Dry brushing is a fantastic technique for highlighting carved details on a furniture piece; but it is also great on flat surfaces where you can create looks like faux driftwood. Dry brushing is a controlled painting technique enabling the furniture artist to judiciously add highlights, low lights and color to a finish.
The materials needed to apply a multicolored dry-brush finish include:
--A high density foam roller and/or chalk paint brush
--Several chip brushes
--Long handled stiff artist's brush
--Chalk paint in various shades
--Paper towels
--Spray bottle of water
TIPS FOR ASSEMBLING YOUR MATERIALS:
FOAM ROLLER AND/OR CHALK PAINT BRUSH: These are for the application of a solid base coat. I like to use a high density foam roller on flat surfaces because it leaves no brush strokes and provides a nice smooth finish. However, if texture is the look you are going for, brush strokes could work to your advantage as the other colors of dry brushed paint will sit on the ridges of the brush stroke for a great look.
CHIP BRUSHES: These will be used for the dry brushing technique itself. Old frayed chip brushes are best! You DON'T want to use a good expensive chalk paint brush to dry brush, as it will ruin the brush. Instead, use well worn chip brushes--the cruddier and more frayed the better. Don't have those? Take new chip brushes and cut down the bristles about half way. Stiff bristles are what you want.
USE MULTIPLE CHIP BRUSHES: Have multiple brushes on hand (and
sizes, if possible--3", 2" and 1"), plus a long handled thin brush to get into corners. Reserve one clean chip brush for "feathering" (i.e. softening harsh lines), and the others with a little residual paint from all your color layers.
CHALK PAINT COLOR CHOICES: The beauty of dry brushing is that you can create a multi-color palette on your furniture piece with highlights and low lights. I would recommend choosing at least three colors (or three hues of the same color family) with darker, mid-range and lighter tones. If your piece has carved detail, dry brushing is perfect for drawing out the details with color.
PAPER TOWELS: Paper towels are not for cleaning up a spill, but for use as a blotter. Fold a paper towel into a four square using each surface to offload or "blot" paint from your brush to make it a "dry brush".
SPRAY BOTTLE: You will use this sparingly, and only as a mister to reactive your dried paint to blend or break up areas of paint applied too thickly.
TIPS FOR APPLYING A DRIED BRUSH TECHNIQUE:
GETTING YOUR BRUSH "DRY": Dry brushing is accomplished using various strokes and stippling motions, but the key to the technique is using a truly....DRY BRUSH! To get your brush "dry" first dip the tips of your brush into chalk paint, and then offload most of the paint onto a paper towel. Once you think that the brush is dry....offload even more paint onto the paper towel blotter!!
Another approach to achieving a "dry brush" is to saturate the top half of the bristles in paint, off load the majority of paint onto the paper towel, and then set your brush out for a few minutes to let the remaining paint partially dry. This will also stiffen the bristles of a newer brush, making the dry brush technique easier.
COLOR ORDERING: The order you apply your colors depends on the nature of piece and the look you are trying to achieve. However, my rule of thumb is to start with a solid base coat of one color and then dry brush the other colors onto the base coat alternating between dark and light. For instance, if I am painting a piece with carved details, I typically use a solid dark color and then dry brush a lighter shade on the tips of the carving to create shadows and highlights. Meanwhile, with a flat surface, I may put the bright color as a base and soften it with muted, darker colors, and then add a highlight here or there. Or if I am trying to get a faux driftwood look, I'd start with the middle tone as the solid color and then add highlights and low lights with the other colors. In the picture immediately below, I first painted this piece in a solid shale gray and then dry brushed various tones of light gray and putty tones to highlight the carved details and achieve this multi-colored look.
APPLYING THE DRY BRUSHED PAINT--THE BASICS: Dry brushing is performed by dragging your brush in various directions on your furniture surface to create tiny lines from the very little paint on the stiffened bristles of your brush. You can do this with light and wispy strokes, or strong and bold strokes. As more paint transfers from the brush to the piece, your strokes need to get stronger and bolder to transfer the paint, until you load your paint brush up again. You can also dry brush by "stippling" or bouncing your brush onto the furniture surface. Same principle on strength applies here...the drier the brush, the harder you need to push down to stipple.
APPLYING THE DRY BRUSHED PAINT--TYPES OF STROKES: The direction and length of the strokes depends on the look you want. You can paint long or short strokes all in one direction, create a crosshatch look, a swirly look, totally random strokes in every direction, strokes + stippling, stippling only, etc. There is simply no right or wrong approach here. However, you should start first with a very light hand and just barely touch the bristles to the furniture surface until you achieve the look that you like. If you're not sure what you like, do a practice board with different techniques ahead of time.
LAYERING: Regardless of the ordering of colors and the strokes that you use, I find the best approach is to work with one color at a time and complete the application of that color on the entire piece in one session, if possible, to achieve a consistent look all over your furniture piece. Your piece will not look good after the first color or two goes on, because the blending has not yet occurred. But later in the process, as you add more and more layers of color, you will see it all come together.
WHEN ARE YOU DONE? Multi-color dry brushed furniture looks best when it is a well blended cacophony of color. If you can see blotches of a specific color standing out, that will always draw the eye to distraction. It will look better if you camouflage such areas with layers upon layers of different colored paint to give it a softer, blended look. One of the reasons I recommend keeping several paint brushes on hand, with remnants of all of the colors you have used, is that later in the process you can tap each brush here or there to fill in gaps or re-accentuate colors that have been obscured too much. It's like stepping away to look at a Christmas tree and then adding more ornaments where things are missing.
DRY BRUSH TROUBLESHOOTING TRICKS:
1) What if the strokes look streaky? Use your "feathering brush" to soften them.
2) What if I put too much paint on and feathering makes it look like a big blob? You have three options to fix this....
a) lightly mist the specific area with a spray bottle and drag a STIFF brush through it to break up the blob (a soft brush will just worsen the blob);
b) wait until it dries completely and then camouflage it by dry brushing the other colors randomly onto the blob;
c) using a 220 grit sandpaper with a light touch, distress the "blob" back to the color(s) underneath to achieve the look you want.
3) What if the paint is just "too wet" despite my offloading efforts? Dispense a little bit of the paint into a styro or paper bowl and let it begin to air dry and thicken before tapping your brush into it and offloading.
4) What if my top layers of paint obscure too much of the other layers beneath? Use those other paintbrushes to add a little bit of the other colors back in. Be careful to do it only after the other colors are completely dry or it will mix together and you won't see the varied color effect.
5) What if I keep getting hairs stuck in my piece? Dry brushing may cause more bristles to break off your brush, so look closely to remove any loose ones while the paint is wet. You can remove them when they are dry by rubbing your finger on them horizontally, but this can be difficult to do if many layers of paint are on top of the bristle.
6) Can I distress my dry brushed piece? YES! And, this can enhance the beauty of it, if you distress it strategically.
And there you have it! I hope that this article was helpful in understanding dry brush technique and that you feel confident to try dry brushing your next furniture project.
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