Official Manufacturer Store and Learning Resource Site
About The
Rag Painting Roller
Paint Technique
How To Faux Paint 1-2-3 Steps
-
Our Rag Painting Roller is so amazing that you’ll be shocked!
-
Holds it’s shape all the way through your painting project. Doesn’t get Floppy or Soggy.
-
Fits a standard USA 9 inch paint roller frame.
-
Creates consistent and professional-looking Rag Faux Painting.
-
Way faster and easier than traditional hand-held rags.
-
Simply roll to your desired look. Whether it’s a crisp and defined look or a soft and muted look.
1-2-3-Faux!
Instruction Steps
Using The Woolie Rag Painting Roller
If you have never faux finished with The Woolie Faux Painting Tools and Techniques, view our detailed step-by-step instruction videos to ensure your delight and success.
The Woolie Rag Roller is a noted favorite of The Woolie Creator, Barbie. The reason is that the results are better than you'd ever imagine. The fabric on this rag painting roller doesn't get saturated in the middle of your faux finish painting project. The best part of this roller is that you really can control your desired look quickly, easily, and truly gives professional-looking results. Simply roll to your desired look.
Carefully review our
Preparation Instructions
before you begin. You will find them further down on this page.
If you have never faux finished with The Woolie Faux Painting Tools and Techniques, view our detailed step-by-step instruction videos to ensure your delight and success.
-
This Technique is easiest to do with two people.
-
Person #1 will apply the faux finish glaze using a roller and a brush near edges.
-
Person #2 will blend and manipulate the glaze using the Sponge Roller.
Helpful Tips
-
You must use 2 highly-contrasting wall paint colors.
-
These colors must be AT LEAST 4 shades apart.
-
Refer to our How to choose color combinations for this technique. This can be found further down on this page.
-
Person #1 will continue to apply the faux glaze color uniformly. This person should be aware of the pace of the other person who is blending the final look and adjust accordingly. Moving ahead too fast may cause the faux glaze to dry before it is blended.
-
Person #2 will roll through the glaze color to create the look of depth and texture. The more you roll, the softer and more muted the look.
-
Person #2 should always leave a small strip of wet unblended glaze between your area and the area where the glaze is being applied. This will avoid overlap lines between sections.
-
Make sure that you soften the edges by blending out so there are no harsh edges left to be seen.
-
IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not reapply glaze once your blended area begins to dry. This will create an undesirable effect.
Helpful Tip
-
LIGHTLY Roll vertically, horizontally and diagonally to ensure that the glaze color is completely blended to your liking and that you create a random, but consistent pattern with your new faux finished colors.
-
Rolling less creates a more textured and bold appearance color variation. Rolling more creates a soft and muted appearance of blended color variation.
-
Get as close to the edges, corners and ceiling lines as possible using the Rag Roller.
-
When you approach an edge, corner or ceiling line. (That has been protected by masking tape prior to painting)
-
Spread the glaze along the edges of the masking tape using a small paint brush to ensure consistent results.
-
Blend and soften the glaze color with a hand-held All-Cotton, Lint-Free rag.
-
Make sure that the glaze color and texture makes a soft and blended transition to previously blended sections.
-
Repeat Steps #1 - #3
Helpful Tips
-
It very important that you apply masking tape to protect your woodwork and ceiling lines BEFORE you begin painting.
-
Refer to the Room Preparation Instructions. This can be found further down on this page.
-
Always blend edges, corners and ceiling lines at the same time you are using the roller. Do NOT wait to do this until the end to blend these areas.
-
If the Rag Painting Roller is too saturated with glaze, it cannot perform properly.
-
Download excess glaze from the Roller occasionally as needed.
-
This is done by rolling on poster board, paper towels or lint-free rags.
-
If you feel that the Sponge Roller is getting overly-saturated too frequently, this may indicate that too much glaze has been applied to the surface prior to blending. Person #1 should adjust accordingly.
This Next Section Provides
Additional Resources and
Helpful Information
For This Faux Painting Technique
If you have never faux finished with The Woolie,
view our detailed step-by-step instruction videos to
ensure your delight and success.
This faux painting technique requires the use of faux finish glaze.
What is a faux finish glaze?
-
Glaze is simply a thin, translucent film of color that is applied over a base coat of a satin finish painted surface. Glaze creates a rich, dimension in many faux and decorative paint techniques.
What does faux finish glaze do?
-
Paint normally dries very quickly. Faux glaze slows down the drying time of paint which gives you more time to manipulate your color to create the look you want. It also makes paint colors translucent to enable you to create the look of depth and texture illusion.
What Kind of Glaze?
-
Water-based glazes and paints are the easiest to work with and to clean up.
-
You can buy glazes that are already tinted, or you can mix up your own custom glaze color.
How do I mix my own glaze?
Mix Faux Glaze (clear colorless) with your chosen paint color.
Combine clear (no color) faux glazing medium with your paint (either latex or acrylic). Generally the ratio is four parts glaze to one part paint, but you should follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Test your glaze mixture on a scrap board or poster board to make sure it's the right consistency and translucency.
Due to their nature, latex glazes can be customized to suit your needs.
The amount of glazing medium you add to the paint can affect the color of the glaze. When you're using lighter paint colors, a 4-to-1 mixture will not affect the value of the color.
But darker colors may be altered to a lighter color value when mixed with too much glaze. It's always best to experiment with the color on a piece of poster board.
The translucency of the glaze is determined by how much paint you add: more paint than glaze results in less translucency; less paint than glaze results in more translucency.
The more clear glaze that is added the longer that your glaze mixture will stay wet.
The more paint that is added the sooner that your glaze mixture will dry.
-
When using the 2-Color Roller, use 1 light color and 1 dark color.
-
These colors should be approximately 3 to 4 shades apart on a paint fan deck.
-
If you wish to increase the illusion of texture, choose your colors 4 to 6 shades apart instead of the standard 3 to 4 shades.
-
You can also decrease the illusion of texture by choosing colors 2 to 3 shades apart.
-
These recommendations are general guidelines and should be used as such. You can become more creative with experimentation and sampling of colors.
The Woolie Painting Techniques
Color Combination Samples
| Ideas | Examples | Inspiration |
The fact is that it's really very difficult to visualize paint color combinations. That's exactly why we offer many color and technique inspiration ideas and samples for your paint projects.
View our color samples to see what inspires you. This is a great first step! Next, play with the colors and blending to get your customized look.
All of our faux finish color combination samples are provided for the general purpose of visual inspiration. It's important for you to understand that each image will appear differently on every computer screen, and so will the suggested colors provided. The only way to determine actual colors is to visit your local paint store and select your preferred color swatches. We suggest that you experiment with sample colors that they offer prior to finalizing your color selections.
Create Your Own MINI-Sized Color Combination Samples!
-
Use inexpensive bottles of craft-sized paint and paint extender/glaze to create your custom color combination samples!
-
Use poster board from your local office supply store.
-
Use The Woolie (New) MINI-sized products to create your samples on poster board from your local office supply.
-
Your local Sherwin-Williams store will match your custom colors when you're ready to start your project.
Protect areas where you don't want paint
-
Apply high quality 2” beige masking tape to protect areas such as woodwork, ceiling and any other areas that need to be protected from paint.
-
We recommend using the FrogTape Brand in 2” inch width.
-
Do not use low-adhesion or blue masking tape for this.
-
Use a putty knife to seal the tape to the surface.
-
Plastic or heavy plastic-faced drop cloths should be used to cover and protect the flooring completely.
Surface Preparation
-
Prior to faux finishing with The Woolie 2-Color Roller, make sure the area is clean of any contaminants such as grease, wax, dirt or any other material that would affect the adherence of paint to the surface.
-
If peeling paint, holes or cracks exist, they should be repaired with spackle, sanded and then touched up with primer.
-
If wall covering has been removed, make sure that any paste residue is cleaned from the surface. New drywall or plaster should be primed to seal the surface.
-
NOTE: If the paint is not adhering to the wall properly, (clumps up or cracks) it is likely because there is wallpaper paste, wallpaper removal solution or other residue on the wall. If this happens, we recommend to apply a coat of primer to the wall before painting.
-
If you have Eggshell, Satin, Semi-Gloss, Gloss or High Gloss Paint existing on walls, We recommend that you consult your local paint store professional as to the appropriate preparation necessary to paint on top of the existing surface sheen level.
