Home > Interior Decorating > Faux > GRAINING ........Step by Step Simple Graining Project >>>

Graining skills.

A book entitled The Museum of Antiquity, in which a description is given of the Egyptian trades three thousand years ago, the following: “Boxes, chairs, tables, etc., were often made of ebony inlaid with ivory, sycamore, and acacia veneering with thin layers and carved devices of rare woods added as ornament on inferior surfaces; and a fondness for display induced the Egyptians to paint common boards to imitate foreign varieties so generally practised at the present day. The colors were usually applied on a thin coating of stucco or a ground smoothly laid on prepared wood and the various knots and grains made to resemble the wood they were intended to counterfeit. This account would appear to indicate that grainers were a professional class of artisans over three thousand years ago."
Perhaps the principal reason why a decorator should be conversant with the production of graining is that sooner or later in his career he will may be called upon to execute it. This being so, he should be in a position to supply the demand.

Graining is the art of imitating the different types of natural woodgrain. It ranges from simple Clair Bois to intricate English Walnut. There are basically two types of wood graining: Coarse(rustic) and Fine(polite).
Fine graining. Layers are built up using water colors and finished with an oil glaze. For the water colors use a beer solution tinted with a pigment, Indian inks, or Vandyke crystals dissolved in water. Vandyke crystals are very dark, almost a match for burnt umber but by varying the amount of water you can get a color range from pale brown to nearly black.

Tools for Graining
A few special tools, in addition to those employed in ordinary house painting, are necessary for graining, although it may be observed that some of the best examples of graining have been carried out with only a minimum of tools. But while the experienced craftsman can often obtain just the effects he requires by the deft manipulation of an old rag or a worn-out brush, it is obviously an advantage for the beginner to have the proper implements.