Anyone who’s watched television in recent months will have seen adverts for mechanical painting systems that promise to eliminate dirty paint trays and messy rollers that have to be washed out after use. They are usually promoted as being quick and easy to use with flawless results, enabling even the clumsiest painter to transform a room in a fraction of the expected time.

But do these miracle paint systems really work and are they value for money? We tried a system priced at the lower end of the market and felt rather disappointed, especially as the paint container, which was located inside the roller, flipped open halfway through the job and we ended up with a rather irritating spillage on our kitchen floor!

The roller on this particular system was also disappointing, having a slightly longer pile that would traditionally be more useful for painting artexed ceilings.

Checking out consumer reviews for the more expensive models, it seems that the machines themselves are prone to breaking or malfunctioning after a few uses and there have been complaints that paint coverage is rather thin. Perhaps there isn’t a hi-tech solution to decorating those awkward spaces and ceilings after all, and it’s best to employ traditional methods.

Any professional painter and decorator will tell you that the secret to hassle free decorating is in the preparation. Walls should be washed down so that they are free from dirt and greasy marks, holes should be filled in and rubbed down and skirting boards and window and door frames should be neatly masked with a good quality masking tape to create clean lines and avoid unsightly splashes of excess paint.

Floors also should be protected and light fittings unscrewed so that you’re not painting around them, which delivers an amateur finish.

Investing in some good quality paint brushes is a must. Cheap brushes easily lose their filaments, which can become stuck to the wall and cause excess paint to get onto the ceiling when you’re working on the top border. Some decorators swear by rollers, but the finish is all in the action, as paint is worked in from side to side. Simply rolling up and down won’t offer an even result.

Alternatively, good quality paint pads are easy to use and offer more control. They come in different sizes, and are less likely to cause splashes than over-loaded rollers. They’re also easier to clean under running water and if you invest in reasonable ones, they have plenty of life in them, which makes them an economical choice.

TO ADVERTISE IN CRAFTMODO USE CONTACT FORM AT TOP RIGHT

With Christmas just around the corner, gifts and presents will be on every crafter’s mind.

Painting on silk

Over at Hobbycraft, they have an interesting section on craft techniques. Here’s one of them : fabric painting.

“Fabric painting is a very popular art form and can be used to create projects such as greetings cards, pictures, clothing and soft furnishing.”

Painting on fabrics

Read about this technique, and others, at Hobbycraft.

I studied what they call “Fine Arts” at university. That means drawing, painting, sculpture, that kind of thing. Whether a university is the right place to go to learn such things is a matter for debate but the experience did get me thinking about what makes art “art” and why something else made by human hands isn’t “art”.

In my personal blog, Gone Away, I wrote down some of my thoughts on this and you are welcome to read and argue, if you wish. My point in this post, however, is to consider the division we make between art and craft. Why do we classify one creation as art and another as craft?

If we accept that art’s primary purpose is to communicate something on a level that is not capable of being verbalized, we can begin to see where art and craft diverge. Craft is not necessarily concerned with communication – it is more practical than that. Craft has to do with such things as lifestyle, quality of environment and usage. It creates things that have a specific use and, by being beautiful, makes our interaction with those things more enjoyable.

So the essential difference is one of purpose. It’s the difference between a work of literature and a technical textbook; the first attempts to speak to us of the human condition, the other tries to teach us something useful. You will never be able to collect the eggs from the chickenhouse with a work of art, nor will you be able to drink from it; but with a work of craft, you just might (good grief, the man’s just called pottery a craft and not an art form!).

Which is not to say that either is of greater or less value than the other – they inhabit different worlds and their purposes do not compete. The practical man will appreciate a finely-turned pot or a handmade pair of shoes but will see little point in the slightly unsettling painting upon the wall; the philosopher will happily live with peeling wallpaper while considering the meaning of life.

Craft is about better design and cares about our environment; art wants only to say, “This is how it feels!”

In my previous post, I dealt with planning and sketching out a mural. All that remains is to paint the real thing but, just before we get into that, you need to draw a grid over your sketch. This can be as fine or as coarse as you think best suits the drawing, but I hope that you’ve chosen a design that is simple enough for just eight to twelve cells in the grid to cover adequately.

The grid separates the picture into several smaller areas that will be easier to deal with one at a time. Now scale up the grid to full size and sketch it on to the surface to be painted. So, if for instance your sketch has squares of one inch per side, you might have squares on the wall or pool bottom of one foot per side.

Now we can begin to paint, outlines first. Study each square of the grid so that you see the shapes contained separately from the whole picture. Using a small brush and a light color (so that it is easy to cover with another color if you make a mistake), repeat the shapes in outline within the corresponding square on the full size grid. When you have done that, move on to the adjoining square and repeat the exercise. And keep doing that until all the squares are filled.

Now when you stand back to get an overall view, you should see your originall drawing magnified upon the surface of the wall or pool. If there are areas that don’t seem quite right, adjust the outlines by re-painting them, then painting over the errors with the background color. When you are happy with the outlines, go over them with a black or dark grey so that they stand out.

Finally, it is merely a matter of mixing to get the colors you decided upon and filling in the relevant shapes. If you’re doing a pool bottom, watch where you’re putting your feet so that you don’t stand on a line and smudge it. Work from the top of the drawing downwards and you’ll not have to stretch over a recently-painted area to reach something in the middle.

And that’s all there is to it. You should now be the proud owner and creator of a huge work of art. Congratulations!