Materials List

Base coat of paint in semi-gloss

Contrast paint in semi-gloss

Clear Mixing Glaze

Ice cream bucket

Rags of old T-shirt or flannel

Drop cloth or large towels for floor

Blue Pro-mask tape

Rubber gloves if desired

Directions

1. Apply your base coat of paint and allow to dry completely according to the manufacturer's instructions. You may want to tape off any woodwork.

2. After base coat is completely dry, combine your clear mixing glaze with your contrast paint in an ice cream bucket and mix thoroughly. The directions on the bottle recommend half paint and half glaze. You may want to add more glaze for a slower drying time and more transparency, but I did the half and half mix.

3. Wet your rag with water and wring out. Next you will "load" your rag with paint from the bucket. Don't go overboard on this. Pat paint onto the rag with hands until it seems fairly wet with paint but not at all dripping. It should be like a dampened rag. Before applying the paint onto the wall you can twist it or bunch it in the palm of your hand and "pounce" it onto a piece of newspaper or something so you can see how much paint the rag will emit. Remember, you don't want it dripping or smudging. Work from the top down.

4. When ragging paint on the wall you will want to open up the rag and re-adjust it into different forms so the pattern does not look the same. You will roll the rag lightly across the wall in various directions or else "pounce" it on the wall (as you would a sponge) in different places. A friend of mine threw her rag gently on the wall rather than rolling it to get the effect she liked.

5. When the rag appears to be out of paint, re-load again to desired amount. Remember to test it before applying it to the wall. Sometimes you can do a very large wall with only one "load" of paint.

6. When doing the corners or near the ceiling, roll the rag into a tube shape and gently press into the corners without pushing too hard. Pull straight out...you don't want to create a smudge. Continue this down the corners or near ceiling.

7. You can choose to rag on one color or many differnt shades of color onto your wall. As always, I like to do a sample in the garage or on a board. The best part of using paint is that you can always re-paint if you aren't satisfied with the results.

Tips

Tape off anything you don't want painted. Blue painters tape is best.

Choosing colors is probably the most difficult thing. If you want high contrast, you would put a light color down first as your base coat and rag over with the glaze/paint mixture in darker color.

For a soft contrast, move about 2 steps up in color from the base coat for your top ragging paint.

Begin at the ceiling and work your way down and across in varying directions. You don't want to have a definate pattern.

Work at re-adjusting your rag often to get different patterns.

If applying a second or third color, allow the first color to dry completely. The color you apply lastly will show up most prominently.

This method can be done with natural sea sponges, plastic bags or burlap for different textured effects.

When finished, remove tape immediately for best results.

You may want to do this technique on your ceiling too!