Emily Smith specializes in faux painting, fine art, decorative finishing, trompe l'oeil and murals. She describes her faux painting techniques and decorative finishing techniques. She also displays her faux painting techniques and decorative finishing techniques through the examples below.
floating marble - also called fossil marble, this faux painting techniques is used on flat surfaces, such as a table or floor. The surface has to be horizontal because the mineral spirits (50% oil paint, 50% mineral spirits) used to create this finish would run down a vertical surface. Floating marble looks very good used as squares on a floor or as a border. An alternative faux painting technique uses water to disperse the oil color in a similar way to that used for marbling paper.
flogging - A faux painting technique used to create the appearance of striations in wood by “whipping” or “lashing” the base coated surface with a special "flogging" brush. This is all done on a base coat that tonally represents the wood that is being simulated. A glaze is applied and flogged off leaving the first stages of a simulated wood appearance.
frescoes - the faux painting technique of watercolor painting, done before the plaster can dry, usually on the ceiling or walls. Derived from the Italian word for "fresh". Fresco describes paintings made by applying water-based paints to wet plaster. When dry, the plaster bonds with the color, making the painting extremely durable. The colors are vivid, red, blue, yellow, green, black, and white. They are applied flat and without shading, so as to be seen clearly from afar.