# How to make and paint stucco or high texture walls.



## lwinters630 (Dec 26, 2012)

I am looking for ideas on how to create and paint textured stucco and brick walls for our next show "Les Miserable HS". Here are some pics of what I am trying to do. One wall is 24'hx40'w others are odd sizes. 

I am guessing some stripping tape and VSSSD. But should I mix other things into it like stucco, cotton or saw dust? 

And how do i get the layered looks, paint, glaze, stain?




Any thoughts would be helpful.


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## doctrjohn (Dec 26, 2012)

I am definitely not a scenic, but Styrofoam and Rosco Foamcoat may be one option. Take a look at Rosco's most recent blog entry for some ideas.

Best,
John


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## Van (Dec 26, 2012)

Wow, There are a TON of ways to make those different textures. The plain bevel siding may be one of the easiest but none are 'simple'. The bevelled lapped siding is going to require a base. I would suggest 2" thick blue or pink Extruded Polystyrene sheet. Make individual boards by ripping strips at the appropriate angle. If you are making a siding that is 4" tall chances are, you won't be able to rip in on your tablesaw, so you'll need to build a jig < or fixture> that hooks onto your bandsaw table to split the individual strips at the appropriate angle. Check out my blog post on here about the siding we did for "Seven Guitars". After ripping the pieces you run a wire brush down them once, or twice in areas that you want to look real worn. Paint them black the come back with VSSSD or foam coat or whatever you are comfortable working withand coat the strips. Depending on the look you arte going for you may want to coat them first then adhere them to the wall. Then coat them again once they are up to give them more in place texture.
Most of the other technicques you have pictured are variations on a " Knock Down " stucco. To acheive this effect you can use drywall compound mixed with a wee bit of paint, or straight drywall joint compound Smear it on with a 8 - 12" float, then come back and LIGHTLY press the float flat into the still wet compound then pull straight off. This will leave a lot of little peaks. < it'll look like the swiss alps in miniature> Let this stand for 30 minutes or so. When you come back the peaks should all be statring to dry out. simpley runn your flaot over the peaks to 'Knock' them down. It helps to keep a mortar boar in one hand to scrape any excess compound onto. The thickness, consistency, drying time and base materials all make a texture like this variably interesting...
The brick texture you've got pictures can be accomplished with a stencil and the same basic knock down technique. You make a stencil of the brickwall out of 1/8 or 1/16" material; Luan, plastic, heavy card stock, etc. Place it over the area you are wanting to texture. Using you trusty 8" float, smear Drywall compound all over the top. basically filling all the open spaces which are the bricks. let it sit 5 minutes. Pull the stencil. do the same "peaking" technicque that you did on the Knock Down technicque. Let this stand for 20 - 30 minutes or so then come back and knock it all down. By keeping the base coat thin and sloppy, like leaving air holes and not worrying about completely filling every brick space you will be varying the texture of each individual brick. Doing the knock down on a brick wall like this wil help give you the look of a brick wll that has been plastered with a skim coat then had that coat start falling off. You can also look at the 7G's blog post to see that we used split Homasote bricks for a couple of our walls. Splitting the homostoe is a total PITA but it does look great when it's all done. There are also a couple of sheet goods, like Z-Brick, that can be used as a base to which you add drywall compound, plaster, VSSSD or Foamcoat to, which wind up looking fairly decent. 
The wood texture you have pictured is really pretty easy. One technicque uses one of those wood-graining tools which are sort of 1/4 round shaped and looks like it might be an oval rubber stamp. I think it's easiest to mix a thick batch of VSSSD < more drywall less latex chaulk > paint it on the board in the direction you want the grain to run. Place the heel of the tool on the far edge of the wood and pull it throught the compound towards you while you slowwly rock the tool "forward" < away from you> this will result in a really coo looking texture. You can also simply paint on a thin coat of dope then use a wire brush or a concrete broom to impart a texture. The only pronblem with the latter texnicque is that it requires that you constantly keep cleaning you tool, which means having a trhough large enough to dunk a concrete brrom in, or you get clumps of dope built up in the broom or brush which leads to undesirable results. 

I hope some of this helps. Feel free to ask for better explainations. I'm kinda rushing through all these. The best advice I can give you is PRACTICE, which ever tchnicque you want to use you need to experiement soem first so you know how to acheive the effedct and look you want.


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## lwinters630 (Dec 26, 2012)

Thanks, I will make up some test boards to get the feel.

The other question is how to get the layers of paint? Are there several layers and do I use glaze, sponge or rags?


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## Van (Dec 27, 2012)

Yes. You can use all thos things as well as Hudson or smaller hand-held sprayers of spattering. I like to lay in a good base then seal the base coat with a cheap-acrylic sealer, something similar to Rosco's clear coat but find a local cheaper brand. You can layer multiple colors on top of each other without sealing between but I have found ,if you have the time, that a clear coat between layers really adds depth. Wet mixing the paints is a great technicque as well: spatter in an area, spatter it with some water from a hudson or hand-held sprayer, then spatter with another color right over the top of that, If yyou do it while it's wet the colors will do all the blending on thier own. if you don't like the look of an area you can simply brush through it and add some more color. 
Having a 'flogger' and/or a feather duster on a stick are both real good tools for adding texture and depth to you wet floor technique.


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## lwinters630 (Dec 28, 2012)

Van said:


> You can also look at the 7G's blog post to see that we used split Homasote bricks for a couple of our walls..


Van, Those pictures look great! I will post pictures back here when I am done with build.


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## BrianWolfe (Jan 11, 2013)

Wallboard compound with sawdust. Trowel it on and texture it as it starts to stiffen.


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