Low Rent Renaissance

This guest bathroom has been a great place to learn and practice. My second attempt at faux bricks is a little better than my first. I made them out of the same mortar mix I use for the flower pots and other outdoor stuff. This was my first effort at faux brick. After trying to form them with joint compound, I made them out of Paperclay and stuck them to the wall with construction glue. Faux finish on the tiles and plastic molding turned out nice though, I think. The peeper you see on the wall behind you when you look in the medicine cabinet mirror. My attempt to give a washed, aged look to the door. Just a close up of the wall -- turquoise and violet with touches of metallic gold.

Continuing work on the little bathroom. These are my first efforts to use joint compound to texture the walls. I first attempted to sculpt the exposed bricks using joint compound, but just couldn't get it right. So I made little flat "bricks" using Paperclay and stuck them to the wall with construction glue, then pressed joint compound with a little sand mixed in between them for "mortar." Then I used joint compound around them. I like the look. I'm priming the wallboard with Well's Plaster Weld prior to troweling on the joint compound. The turquoise is a little bolder than I expected. You can see a little violet worked in, and maybe some of the metallic gold highlight.I was thinking of the desert or at least the west -- of turquoise and terracotta -- but I think I'm getting the ocean.

 So this is an effort to paint the cheesy plastic above our guest bathroom tub to look like ceramic tile. The area was primed with Zinsser all surface primer. I masked the "grout" with 1/8 inch wide masking tape, and I'm using good ol' Decoart Americana acrylic paints -- Georgia Clay, Dried Clay, a couple different oranges, and black -- to create the look. I'm using  brown, black, and grey acrylics to attempt a faux wood look over the plastic frame. The plan is to cover the entire project with a clear matte glaze. We'll see how it all goes. I'm trying various methods to create the look -- mostly just improvising with dry brushing or patting the layered paint with a foam brush. It's been a great time to experiment, and I've tried mixing a clear glaze with black to overlay my base of terracotta colors, but thus far haven't cared much for the result and have just applied thin layers of paint straight from the bottle -- mixing to various shad...

Ghost is from Super Sculpy over copper wire. The scenery is from Polyform Air Dry. Ghoul is made from Super Sculpy. The background from Polyform Air Dry. Hair is steel wool. The frame was bought at a garage sale or thrift store.

A blue moon.