Go Paint Something!

You know I teach mural classes, right? My students are awesome! One of the most common technique questions I get is about to paint mural bricks to look real. One of my specialties is trompe l’oeil (trick the eye) so saddle up ’cause I am excited to walk you through this one!

I’ve found that painting bricks to look real is probably one of the easiest techniques there is in the world of trompe l’oeil.

Most people can paint the patterns – that’s pretty standard, especially if you’re using the typical 3” x 9” brick. But what they forget to paint are the shadows!

Walk outside and take a look at the side of your house. I’m assuming its brick. If not, walk down to a neighbor’s house, and stare at their wall. They’ll love it. (Crazy artist. What’s he doing now?)

Anyway, what you’re looking for is how the light is creating shadows in the mortar joints. That’s the part that separates the good artists from the great ones! Notice that the shadows aren’t always uniform.

Hell, a lot of the time they aren’t even there! But what you will see is a distinct pattern, something that you want to replicate in your painting.

Also notice that the bricks aren’t just one color. It’s at least 3, maybe even 4 colors. When painting your base brick color, mix all of those colors together in a tray and roll on the background. When it’s dry, and you have drawn your brick pattern, randomly darken a few of the bricks. Then randomly lighten a few of them. Rarely are all of the bricks the same hue.

Use a Guide Dog or a Mahl Stick to paint the initial grout lines. Then, after determining which direction your light is coming from, freehand your shadows, using your neighbor’s brick as a guide.

Tell them you’ll give them a 6-pack for the rights to use their brick as a model for your artwork. They’ll be so impressed!

After all of the shadows are painted, come back with some white paint and barely highlight the edges opposite of the shadows. This is the reflection of the light coming off the edges of the brick.

Yeah, it might not be real obvious when you look at your actual brick, but this is where we can get away with a little artistic license. Trust me: it’ll look great!

To your success,

Michael Cooper
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